Goal specificity or ambiguity? Effects of self-quantification on persistence intentions

PurposeThe current study implies self-quantification to consumer behavior and investigates how self-quantification influences consumers' persistence intentions, then indicates the underlying mechanism and examines the role of sharing in social media context.Design/methodology/approachThe hypotheses are tested by three experimental studies. In study 1, the authors test the main effect of self-quantification on persistence intentions and demonstrate goal specificity as the mediator. In study 2 and 3, the authors explore sharing and sharing audience as the moderators.FindingsThe current research demonstrates that quantifying personal performance increases consumers' persistence intentions because self-quantification makes the focal goal more specific. However, sharing self-quantification performance with others has a negative effect on the relationship between self-quantification and persistence intentions. Building on goal conflict theory, sharing diverts consumers' focus away from the goal itself and toward others' evaluation and judgment, which makes the focal goal more ambiguous. Moreover, the negative effect depends on who is the sharing audience. When consumers share with close others who hold a similar goal with them, the negative effect of sharing is dramatically reversed.Practical implicationsThe present research offers guidelines to managers about how to design self-tracking system to increase user's engagement and how to establish social community on social media platform to motivate users' goal pursuit.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the research of self-quantification from consumer behavior perspective. It also enriches interactive marketing literature by broadening self-quantification relevant research from social interaction dimension.

A Goal Intervention Improves Language Fluency: Evidence from Parkinson’s Disease and Healthy Aging

Parkinson’s disease [PD] is associated with reduced motor and cognitive initiation, and decreased goal-directed behavior including language generation. The current study investigated a novel goal intervention for language generation impairments in PD patients. Methods: Twenty-one PD patients and 22 healthy controls, matched for gender, age, and education, completed a cognitive baseline and language generation tasks (complex scene descriptions and phonemic/semantic word fluency) with standard and adapted instructions, which implements a target ‘goal’. In addition, participants completed self-report questionnaires for apathy and mood. Results: PD patients performed more poorly on two of three language generation tasks. The goal intervention was effective in increasing both the PD patient and healthy control groups’ language generation. However, there was no differential benefit of increased goal specificity and difficulty for PD patients. As a group, PD patients reported higher levels of apathy and depression than healthy controls. Specifically, PD patients with executive apathy were more likely to have language generation impairments than PD patients without executive apathy and controls. Apathy subscales and goal benefit were unrelated. Conclusions: The goal intervention was effective for PD patients and older adults, suggesting that enhanced goal specificity and difficulty may benefit individuals with PD or those aging naturally.

Factors influencing senior learners’ language learning motivation. A Hungarian perspective

The paper aims to investigate Hungarian senior language learners’ motivational profile with a special attention to factors influencing their motivational intensity. We focused on the significant features of Hungarian senior language learners’ motivational behaviour and conducted a survey with thirty senior Hungarian students learning English as a Foreign Language (FL). This instrument was constructed based on Gardner’s socio-educational model and Tremblay and Gardner’s model of second language (SL) motivation. We performed a series of statistical analyses on the data. The results of multiple regression analyses show that the most influential factors regarding motivational behaviour of older language learners in this context are attitude towards leaning the SL and goal specificity.

GOAL SETTING THEORY: THE EFFECT OF INCENTIVE MODERATION ON INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE

This study uses goal-setting theory and reinforcement theory to explain the formation of individual motivation in achieving goals. Testing the effect of goal specificity used the experimental method to test the impact of goal specificity, different goal difficulty on the same quota incentive system as the 2x2x1 experimental design. This study's findings confirm the goal-setting theory shown from the higher achievement of participants' goals when participants are given specific and challenging goals than participant goals in different variations of goal specificity and goal difficulty. This study found that participants have a greater focus on goal specificity in driving goal attainment behavior. The findings of this study confirm the reinforcement theory shown from achieving goals that exceed targets. Positive consequences become arguments for individuals to do the same action

The Role of Goal Specificity in the Relationship Between Leadership and Empowerment

Although there has been much recent attention to empowerment in public sector research, most of this research focuses on structural empowerment, rather than psychological empowerment, and thus focuses on management practices, rather than on employees’ motivational states. This article examines the processes through which transformational leadership and transactional leadership affect employees’ feelings of psychological empowerment, focusing specifically on the role of goal specificity as a mediating variable. Using data collected from state government employees, the structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses found support for hypotheses that goal specificity mediates the relationships between both transformational and transactional leadership and psychological empowerment. These results contribute to the discussion of transformational and transactional leadership approaches with regard to goal setting in the public sector and provide practical implications that public managers’ leadership behaviors can help employees develop positive attitudes toward goal specificity, which can then lead to feelings of psychological empowerment.

Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Work Engagement: Can Public Managers’ Servant-Leader Orientation Make a Difference?

The present study examines the antecedents of street-level bureaucrats’ work engagement. In particular, this study investigates whether a work-unit manager’s servant-leader orientation may, directly or indirectly, contribute to increasing subordinates’ work engagement by shaping employees’ resources (i.e., job autonomy, goal specificity, public service motivation [PSM], and organizational trust). Data collected from 416 street-level bureaucrats in Korean local government agencies and the analyzed results show that work-unit managers’ servant-leader orientation indirectly influence employees’ work engagement by developing employees’ positive perceptions and attitudes.

Does training in a top-down approach influence recorded goals and treatment plans?

Background. Five stroke rehabilitation teams were supported in the implementation of Cognitive Orientation to daily Occupational Performance (CO-OP) as part of a knowledge translation (KT) project called CO-OP KT. Medical record auditors noted there was occasionally a disconnect between client goals and treatment plans, revealing a need to better understand the characteristics of each and their relationship to each other. Purpose. This study aimed to examine the characteristics of goals and treatment plans in occupational therapy before and after CO-OP KT. Method. A descriptive secondary analysis of medical record data was employed. Findings. Post intervention, there was a change in goal specificity ( p = .04) and therapist–client goal alignment ( p = .05). Occupation-based goals were often paired with a bottom-up, impairment-based treatment. Top-down treatments, when present, lacked the same detail given to bottom-up plans. Implications. CO-OP KT seemed to lead to more specific goals, but matching top-down treatment plans were not found.