When Good Intentions Are not Enough

Furnishing ones goals with implementation intentions(i.e. 'If I encounter situation X, then I'll performbehavior Y') has been shown to be an effective self-regulatory strategy to improve goal-achievement.Recent research has suggested that the beneficialeffect of implementation intentions on goal-successcan be moderated by situational and individualfactors. However, the results of this research werenot fully conclusive.The studies presented in this work are intended tofurther investigate the moderation of theimplementation intention effect by exploring threedifferent factors, which are assumed to impair theefficiency of the if-then-plans.Two of the three factors were indeed found tomoderate the effect of implementation intentions ongoal-achievement. The third study failed to show theexpected result due to methodolgical issues. Theimportance of these findings for laboratory andfield studies using implementation intentions isdiscussed and implications for future research arepresented.

Autorentext

Georg Odenthal received his PhD in Psychology in 2008 from the University of Konstanz where he did research on human action and goal striving. His research interests are the conscious and nonconscious effects of situational constraints on human cognition and action. Currently he works as researcher in a marketing research institute.

Klappentext
Furnishing ones goals with implementation intentions (i.e. 'If I encounter situation X, then I'll perform behavior Y') has been shown to be an effective self- regulatory strategy to improve goal-achievement. Recent research has suggested that the beneficial effect of implementation intentions on goal-success can be moderated by situational and individual factors. However, the results of this research were not fully conclusive. The studies presented in this work are intended to further investigate the moderation of the implementation intention effect by exploring three different factors, which are assumed to impair the efficiency of the if-then-plans. Two of the three factors were indeed found to moderate the effect of implementation intentions on goal-achievement. The third study failed to show the expected result due to methodolgical issues. The importance of these findings for laboratory and field studies using implementation intentions is discussed and implications for future research are presented.