Establishing self-concordant goals: a longitudinal study on the influence of ego identity on goal self-concordance

Introduction

Self-concordant goals are those that align closely with an individual's intrinsic interests and values, driving autonomous motivation, and resulting in higher satisfaction and goal achievement. The relevance of studying the link between ego identity and goal self-concordance lies in understanding how a well-defined ego identity can foster the pursuit of authentic and fulfilling goals.

Objectives

This study investigates the relationship between ego identity and goal self-concordance, focusing on how individuals' sense of identity influences their alignment with personal goals.

Methods

Data were gathered through a cross-sectional analysis of 292 students and a longitudinal follow-up with 98 participants over two intervals.

Results

Results confirmed significant correlations between ego identity status and various dimensions of goal self-concordance. Notably, different ego identity statuses exhibited distinct levels of goal self-concordance, ranked from highest to lowest as follows: identity achievement, achievement-foreclosure intermediate, moratorium, foreclosure, moratorium-diffusion intermediate, and diffusion. Cross-lagged analysis revealed a causal relationship where ego identity influences goal self-concordance, providing insights into the cognitive and behavioral processes involved in goal setting.

Discussion

This study extends the implications of the goal self-concordance model and reveals a causal relationship between ego identity status and goal self-concordance. From a practical perspective, our findings suggest that educational and developmental interventions aimed at supporting identity development and commitment could lead to more self-concordant goal setting. Such programs could ultimately promote greater well-being and personal growth among students.

Surprisingness and Occupational Engagement Influence Affective Forecasting in Career-Relevant Contexts

People tend to misestimate their future emotions. This phenomenon is thought to be associated with information accessibility. However, few studies have demonstrated the impact of context-specific information accessibility on affective forecasting. This research investigated the effects of information accessibility on affective forecasting in career context (i.e., occupational engagement was seen as information accessibility), during which surprise or not surprise context was played simultaneously. We found that affective forecasting appeared stably across emotional response types. Specifically, there was an underestimation in interest appraisals and an overestimation in satisfaction. These biases were influenced by occupational engagement, which only worked in career interest appraisals. High occupational engagement made people estimate their future emotions more accurately and overcome their forecasting bias. Surprisingness was then manipulated further to explain whether it could impact the effect of occupational engagement on affective forecasting. The emotional responses in both prediction and experience were affected by surprisingness, thus causing no affective forecasting biases. These results suggest the role of occupational engagement in affective forecasting and provide evidence supporting the information accessibility model about the mechanism in affective forecasting.

A rational route to transformative decisions

According to Paul (Transformative experience, 1st edn, Oxford University Press, 2014), transformative experiences pose a challenge to decision theory since their value cannot be anticipated. Building on Pettigrew's (in: Lambert, Schwenkler (eds) Becoming someone new: essays on transformative experience, choice, and change, Oxford University Press, pp 100-121, 2020) redescription, this paper presents a new approach to how and when transformative decisions can nevertheless be made rationally. Thanks to fundamental higher-order facts that apply to any kind of experience, an agent always at least knows the general shape of the utility space. This in combination with the knowledge about the non-transformative alternative in the choice set can enable rational decision-making despite the presence of a transformative experience. For example, this paper's approach provides novel arguments for why gender transition (cf. McKinnon in Res Philosophica 92(2):419-440, 2015) or staying childfree (cf. Barnes in Philos Phenomenol Res 91(3):775-786, 2015) can be rational.

Do Narcissists Benefit from Materialistic Pursuits? Examining the Relation Between Narcissistic Tendencies, Extrinsic Goals, and Well-Being

Past research consistently finds that the pursuit of extrinsic goals detracts from our happiness and well-being, and instead contributes to ill-being. Despite the robustness of this finding, recent research suggests that people with narcissistic tendencies are more likely to derive meaning from extrinsic goals. We conducted a high-powered (n = 576) pre-registered study to examine whether exhibiting higher narcissistic tendencies relates to perceiving materialistic pursuits as being more meaningful and how this in turn influences well-being. Results indicate that having greater narcissistic tendencies was positively associated with perceiving extrinsic goals as being more meaningful, which in turn negatively predicted subjective and eudaimonic well-being, and positively predicted depression. Overall, while it may be the case that people with narcissistic tendencies gain some hedonic benefits from materialistic pursuits, the pursuit of extrinsic goals is negatively related to well-being, as consistent with self-determination theory. All study materials, pre-registration, data, and code can be found at osf.io/8629d.

New Directions in Self-Regulation: The Role of Metamotivational Beliefs

Research on self-regulation has primarily focused on how people exert control over their thoughts, emotions, and behavior. Less attention has been paid to the ways in which people manage their motivational states in the service of achieving valued goals. In this article, we explore an emerging line of research that focuses on people’s beliefs about their own motivation (i.e., their metamotivational knowledge), as well as the influence these beliefs have on their selection of regulatory strategies. In particular, we review evidence showing that people are often quite sensitive to the fact that distinct motivational states (e.g., eagerness vs. vigilance) are adaptive for different kinds of tasks. We also discuss how other metamotivational beliefs are inaccurate on average (e.g., beliefs about how rewards affect intrinsic motivation). Finally, we consider the implications of metamotivation research for the field of self-regulation and discuss future directions.