Tag Archives: Sheena Iyengar

Multiple Paths Toward Goals Can Motivate, then Derail Success

Szu-Chi Huang

Goal motivation changes as people move closer to their target, according to Stanford’s Szu-chi Huang and Ying Zhang of University of Texas.
Their work built on Heinz Heckhausen’s earlier studies of goal motivation.

Ying Zhang

In the first stages of effort, multiple paths toward the goal makes the target seem attainable, noted Huang and Zhang.

Albert Bandura

This perception of “self-efficacy,” belief in their ability to achieve a goal by applying effort and persistence, provides motivation to continue goal striving and reduce emotional arousal, reported Stanford’s Albert Bandura.

Clark Hull

In contrast, when people are close to achieving a goal, a single goal path provides greater motivation. This observation is consistent with Clark Hull’s finding that motivation increases closer to the goal.

Sheena Iyengar

A single route to the finish reduces the “cognitive load” of considering different approaches, supporting Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper’s finding that “more choice is not always better.”

Peter Gollwitzer

These stages of goal pursuit are characterized by differing mindsets.
“Deliberative Mindset” describes considering work toward a goal whereas “Implemention Mindset” characterises planning the execution steps toward a goal, according to NYU’s Peter Gollwitzer, Heinz Heckhausen, and Birgit Steller of University of Heidelberg.

Huang, a former account director at advertising giant JWT, evaluated customer loyalty behaviors to achieve incentive goals.
In one study, she issued two versions of an invitation to join a coffee-shop loyalty program.

Half of the participants received a “quick start” to earning a free coffee by providing them with half of the required credit stamps when they began.
Half of these volunteers had multiple ways to earn additional reward stamps: Buying coffee, tea or any other drink.
More than 25% of this multi-option/”quick start” group joined the loyalty program.

The other half of the “quick start” volunteers could earn more stamps in only one way: Buying a beverage.
Significantly more of the customers with a single option joined the loyalty program.

The comparison group received no stamps.
Half these customers could earn more stamps in several ways and more than 1/3 registered for the loyalty program.
Remaining participants had the single option of purchasing more beverages, and registered significantly less frequently for the loyalty program.

This difference between goal pursuit behaviors when close to a consumer goal is applicable to personal goals like fitness, weight reduction, smoking cessation, and confident public speaking.

Motivation toward a goal is also determined by:

Goal value,
Expectancy of success, based on probability, difficulty, sufficiency, necessity,

Nira Liberman

according to Tel Aviv University’s Nira Liberman and Jens Förster of Jacobs University of Bremen and Universiteit van Amsterdam.

Jens Förster

Similarly, Huang and Zhang demonstrated the motivational impact of choice.
They compared behaviours of yoghurt shop customers who were required to purchase six flavors in a specific order compared with any order, to receive an incentive.

Volunteers with fewer choices were more likely to achieve the goal of a free yoghurt.
“…relatively rigid structures can often simplify goal pursuit by removing the need to make choices, especially when people are already well into the process,” explained Huang.

A practical application is that nonprofit organizations can benefit from changing contribution options when a fund-raising target is nearly met.
At that time, fewer and simpler ways to donate are likely to result in more participation in the campaign.

-*How do you maintain motivation when you are close to achieving a goal?

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Decision Maximizers, Satisficers and Potential Bias

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Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz of Swarthmore College differentiates two decision styles:

“Maximizers”, who persistently seek “the best” by performing exhaustive comparative evaluations
“Satisficers”, who quickly accept a “good enough” after a limited number of comparisons in The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less .

Satisficers tend to be more satisfied with decisions and take less time to take a choice — significant benefits in time-constrained work environments.

Conversely, “maximizers” can experience stress in a quest of the best available option, along with risking obsessional focus on a decision at the expense of “the bigger picture.”
Schwartz asserts that it is nearly impossible to reach this alleged ‘best’ result, given the abundant choices available for most things.

He suggests that people assess previous relevant experiences personally experienced or observed in others. After the experience, people typically compare the experience to hopes, expectations, and the actual event.

Schwartz thinks that people risk errors in comparisons because these are constructed from the most attractive parts of each potential outcomes, and may not actually exist.
He observed that when this occurs, any comparison to an idealized image is disappointing.

He suggests a “hedonic treadmill” in which things that were satisfactory in the past fail to satisfy a new, idealized standard.

Schwartz advises that a way off the treadmill is to differentiate what one actually needs from wants, and consciously moderating expectations and the pull to maximize most every outcome.
His recommended tactics guide people to:

Adopt satisficing in low-stakes situations
Beware of comparison and maximizing, common thinking errors
Set and adhere to a deadline for the maximum time to take a decision.

Dan Ariely

Duke University’s Dan Ariely considered the ways emotion, social norms, and relative evaluations can shape and bias decisions in ways other than satisficing and maximizing:

Relativity, or comparisons to contrast differences such as in price, quality, desirability.
As Sheena Iyengar noted, more choices do not result in greater satisfaction with selections
Anchoring or fixating on any arbitrary starting point, such as price
Free offers, more powerful than deep discounts
Social norms, in which people may pay for services on one situation, but expect them as part of social reciprocity in another situation (such as staying at a hotel vs with friends or paying for pet-sitting services vs having a friend perform this services at no cost)
Compliance pre-commitments and removing obstacles in advance
Overvaluation of possessions, accomplishments
Overvaluation of “optionality” or “keeping options open”
Expectations, including perceptual heuristics like stereotypes
Placebos, or inert agents
Easy opportunity for non-compliance. Overcome by reference to shared ethical norms.

Ori Brafman – Rom Brafman

Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman added three decision biases in Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior:

Loss aversion, leading to compensatory actions to avoid perceived loss
Diagnosis bias, resulting in difficulty reevaluating initial impressions of a person or situation),
“Chameleon effect” or “Zelig effect”, assuming arbitrarily-characteristics or implied expectations, as in the “Pygmalion effect”

Michael Shermer

Michael Shermer of Skeptic magazine added to the inventory of potential thinking errors that undermine people’s efforts to critically evaluate decisions and supporting evidence for arguments after he embraced fundamentalist Christianity, alien abductions, Ayn Rand, megavitamin therapy, and deep-tissue massage.

He adopted the motto “Cognite tute–think for yourself“ and asserts that people hold unfounded beliefs for:

Consolation
Immediate gratification
Simplicity
Moral meaning
Continuing hope

We might add to his list:

Belonging to a group or idea

-*How do you balance Maximizing with Satisficing?

-*What tactics help monitor potential thinking biases and decision fallacies?

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Consider All Your Options at Once, Be Happier with Choices: Minimize “Quest for the Best” Bias

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Sheena Iyengar

Columbia Business School professor Sheena Iyengar, Cassie Mogilner of University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and Baba Shiv of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business collaborated to assess the relative satisfaction and commitment to “sequential choices,” as in “love marriages,” compared with “simultaneous choices”, like arranged marriages.

Iyengar’s earlier research revealed that more choices available at one time are associated with reduced satisfaction.
To evaluate satisfaction with simultaneous vs sequential choosing, Iyengar, Shiv, and Mogilner studied volunteers’ satisfaction and commitment to choices of wine, chocolate, and nail polish colors.
Results, forthcoming in the Journal of Consumer Research, found that “simultaneous” choosers were more satisfied and committed to their decisions than “sequential” choosers.

Cassie Moligner

In the chocolate experiment, participants considered detailed descriptions of fine chocolates (“dark chocolate ganache with black tea and hints of citrus and vanilla”), and chose which they wanted to taste.
The “simultaneous” group saw the entire list, whereas the “sequential” group saw one choice at a time.

After they selected and tasted the chocolate, participants rated their satisfaction with their choice.
Verdict? “Simultaneous” choosers were more satisfied with their choices than “sequential” choosers.

Baba Shiv

When participants had an opportunity to switch to a different but randomly-selected chocolate, more “sequential” choosers took this option, though they had little information about the choice.
However, when “sequential” choosers were permitted to choose an option they’d already considered, they were less committed to their choice.

The researchers suggest that “sequential” choosers may have regretted forgoing options they didn’t select, and hoped that a future option would be better.

Shiv summarized the dilemma of the “sequential” chooser (or serial dater, serial monogamist): Hope and regret prompt people to move to the next option even though the next option could be worse.
In contrast, “simultaneous” choosers are aware of available options at a point in time, so may spend less time in regret and hope.

Retailers, daters, venture capitalists, hiring managers, house purchasers, and job candidates benefit from presenting and evaluating all choices at one time.

However, simultaneous choice may not be possible, and to avoid the “bias of the eternal quest for the best,” Shiv suggests “mentally converting sequential choices into “quasi-simultaneous” choices by recalling situations when you were happy with you choice, and when you regretted your choices.”

Though an imperfect heuristic, quasi-simultaneous choice may may provide instructive clues to the elements of a satisfying decision.

-*How do you take decisions among many options?

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Kathryn Welds, PhD | Curated Research + Commentary

Consulting Organizational Psychologist | Change Consultant | Leadership+Career Master Coach | Coach Supervisor+Mentor Coach |

Tag Archives: Sheena Iyengar

Multiple Paths Toward Goals Can Motivate, then Derail Success

Consider All Your Options at Once, Be Happier with Choices: Minimize “Quest for the Best” Bias

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