Affective State During Goal Adoption: Does it Matter?

Indianapolis, IN

Prior research has shown that positive affect usually helps individuals to achieve their goals, typically by energizing individuals' performance during goal pursuit. However, researchers have yet to address the potentially facilitative role that positive affect might play during the process of goal adoption. In the current experiment, we examined whether positive affect experienced at the time of goal adoption facilitates goal achievement. Participants will be induced into a positive or neutral affective state and will be asked to adopt the goal of performing well on a cognitive task. After a waiting period, all participants will then complete the task. Task performance is predicted to be significantly better for the positive affect group compared to the neutral affect group. These findings suggest that experiencing positive affect during goal adoption may facilitate goal achievement