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Enhances your persistence

You gain pride, satisfaction, and confidence when you achieve or make progress towards a goal. These positive feelings will spur you on to persist and chase further success.

Singer, Korienek, Jarvis, McColskey, and Candeletti (1981) completed a study that showed how goals can increase your persistence to a task. The study included 28 participants, who were randomly assigned to a goal setting or non-goal setting group. The participants completed a photoelectric mirror maze task, where performance was measured in the time to complete the maze and how many errors for each attempt. 

Image by Mārtiņš Zemlickis

Participants were allowed as many attempts as they wished, in the effort to achieve a personal best performance. At the completion of each attempt all participants received positive feedback and were reminded that they could try again, and continue for as many attempts as they wished.

In addition, after each attempt, the goal setting group were reminded of their goal, which was to complete the maze in less than 45 seconds with no more than 10 errors for any attempt. They were also reminded of their short-term goal which was to improve on their previous attempt by 10%.

What the researchers were really interested in was to see how long each group would persist with the task. They discovered that the goal setting group persisted for longer (i.e had more attempts) than the non goal setting group - completing more than double the amount of attempts!

Stock and Cervone (1990) showed including a short-term goal increased persistence on a task. Participants were given a modified version of the 'Missionaries and Cannibals' problem solving task. This task involves moving hypothetical figures across a river using a boat, but with certain constraints added. The instructions are shown below:

 

On one bank of a river are three missionaries and three cannibals. They all must cross a river using a boat which can carry at least two people, under the constraint that, for both banks and the boat, that the missionaries present on the bank (or the boat), cannot be outnumbered by cannibals (if they were they would get eaten). The boat cannot cross the river by itself with no people on board.

The problem can be solved in no fewer than 12 unique moves. However, the researchers modified the task to include 4 missionaries and 4 cannibals, which made the task impossible to complete.

 

It was possible to complete 7 stages but at that time you would become stuck, and not be able to progress any further. However, the participants were not told this and believed the problem could be solved. The participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups:

  • Long-Term Goal - their aim was simply to solve the problem. To remind the participants of the end goal, the researchers gave them an image that showed all four missionaries and all four cannibals with the boat, all on the right-hand side of the river. 

  • Short-Term Achievable Goal - this group was told that they should aim for an intermediate step, which was needed to solve the problem. This would be their short-term subgoal for the task. They were shown an image of the fourth stage of the problem that they needed to reach, which was three cannibals and the boat on the right side of the river, and four missionaries and one cannibal on the left.

  • Short-Term Unachievable Goal - this group were also told to aim for an intermediate step, which was needed to solve the problem. The participants were shown an image that they were told they needed to achieve, but it was actually impossible to obtain, which was all four missionaries and the boat on the right, and all the cannibals on the left of the river.

When participants reached the fourth step, the Short-Term Achievable Goal group were made aware that they had achieved their subgoal, so they were the only group who had acquired 'success' at this stage. The researchers then measured how much longer each group spent on trying to solve the impossible task. The Short-Term Achievable group persisted for longer (nearly 50% longer), in comparison to the other two groups, which suggests obtaining a short-term goal increases your persistence to continue with a task.

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References

Stock, C., & Cervone, D. (1990). Proximal goal-setting and self-regulatory processes. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 14 (5), 483-498.

Singer, R.N., Korienek, G., Jarvis, D., McColskey, D., & Candeletti, G. (1981). Goal-Setting and Task Persistence. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 53 (3), 881-882.

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