Peter M. Gollwitzer

New York University | NYU · Department of Psychology

Motivation science has advanced tremendously in the past decade. However, it is now clear that future progress is going to be stalled by the extent of disagreement among motivation scientists to some basic, yet controversial, questions. To help move motivation science toward greater coherence, the editors recruited prominent scholars to debate thei...

Motivation science has advanced tremendously in the past decade. However, it is now clear that future progress is going to be stalled by the extent of disagreement among motivation scientists to some basic, yet controversial, questions. To help move motivation science toward greater coherence, the editors recruited prominent scholars to debate thei...

Task rules restrict freedom by definition, but do they necessarily harm intrinsic motivation? We examine how task rules for an open-ended writing activity affect intrinsic motivation, or enjoyment, with one's sense of direction and psychological freedom as potential mechanisms. Results from three online experiments (Experiment 1, Experiments 3a and...

Motivation science has advanced tremendously in the past decade. However, it is now clear that future progress is going to be stalled by the extent of disagreement among motivation scientists to some basic, yet controversial, questions. To help move motivation science toward greater coherence, the editors recruited prominent scholars to debate thei...

Two potentially costly errors are common in sequential investment decisions: sticking too long to a failing course of action (escalation of commitment), and abandoning a successful course of action prematurely. Past research has mostly focused on escalation of commitment, and identified three critical determinants: personal responsibility, preferen...

Our commentary highlights the importance of the present special issue on disengagement from goals. The various contributions focus on as vital topics as people vexed by goals being blocked, stuck between going on versus letting go, and drowning in ruminations. They clarify that person and contextual factors, framing strategies, and emotional make-u...

We explore motivational processes stemming from bicultural identity goals of being Turkish and being German by investigating the effect of identity goal incompleteness versus completeness in the two identity goals on the use of multifinal means to self-symbolize German-Turkish cultural identity goals. Individuals incomplete in either or both identi...

The COVID-19 pandemic has radically altered everyday interactions, potentially disrupting the process of romantic relationship formation. Prior research suggests that threats to the basic psychological need for relatedness, along with negative mental imagery, can lead to an obsessive preoccupation with a romantic interest. The present research exam...

To capture the attention of a romantic partner requires thoughtful selection of effective pursuit strategies. Sometimes, these strategies err on the side of caution; in other instances, pursuers can take a bolder approach to their courtship endeavors. In the present research, we developed a measure capturing the degree to which a romantic pursuer i...

Past research has found that regulatory closure, that is, successful goal striving regulated either under a promotion or prevention focus, has important consequences in terms of motivational activation and mobilisation of cognitive resources in subsequent tasks, but it mostly investigated motivation in the same or similar tasks to the one for which...

This experiment tested whether personal choice vs. external assignment of task characteristics moderates the effect of incidental affective stimulation on effort-related cardiovascular response. We expected strong action shielding and low receptivity for incidental affective influences when participants could choose themselves the stimulus color of...

The COVID-19 pandemic has radically altered everyday interactions, potentially disrupting the process of romantic relationship formation. Prior research suggests that threats to the basic psychological need for relatedness, along with negative mental imagery, can lead to an obsessive preoccupation with a romantic target. We investigated how the rel...

Objective: The present research examined whether mentally contrasting a negative, feared future (i.e., infection with the Coronavirus) with a still positive reality can promote preventative actions in the context of the pandemic. Design: In two randomized controlled trials, we varied participants' mode of thought (mental contrasting of a negative f...

To capture the attention of a romantic partner requires thoughtful selection of effective pursuit strategies. Sometimes these strategies air on the side of caution, and in other instances pursuers can take a more persistent approach to their courtship endeavors. In the present research, we developed a measure capturing the degree to which a romanti...

In an attempt to integrate theorizing on action shielding with affective influences on effort‐related cardiovascular response, an experiment with N = 115 university students (90% women) tested whether working on a task by personal choice versus external assignment moderates the effect of happy versus sad background music on effort‐related cardiovas...

Forming implementation intentions (i.e., if-then planning) is a powerful self-regulation strategy that enhances goal attainment by facilitating the automatic initiation of goal-directed responses upon encountering critical situations. Yet, little is known about the consequences of forming implementation intentions for goal attainment in situations...

Objective: Reducing face touching could help slow COVID-19’s spread. We tested whether implementation intentions, a simple-to-use behaviour change intervention, reduce face-touching behaviour effectively. Design: In this pre-registered online study, we utilised a novel way to collect behavioural data during a pandemic. We obtained video recordings...

Memorializes Robert A. Wicklund (1941-2020). Wicklund was born in Seattle, WA, December 1, 1941. At the time of his death on December 12, 2020, he maintained residences in Bainbridge Island, WA, and Bielefeld, Germany. Bob earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Washington and his doctorate at Duke University in 1968. He held primary f...

According to symbolic self completion theory, individuals strive for their aspired-to identity goals by accumulating symbols that indicate the possession of that very identity. If individuals lack such symbols, lose them, or fail to acquire them, a state of identity goal incompleteness is triggered that motivates identity goal-directed behavior (i....

If-then planning (implementation intentions) describes a self-regulatory strategy that helps people to attain their goals across a variety of domains, such as achieving physical activity goals. Based on such beneficial effects, if-then plans are anecdotally discussed as a strategy to enhance sports-related performance as well. However, this discuss...

The tendency to be overly confident in one’s future and skills has long been studied. More recently, a correlate of this overconfidence, the tendency to overclaim knowledge, has been in the focus of research. Its antecedents and downstream behavioral consequences are still in question. In a sample of undergraduate students (N = 168), we tested whet...

Two experiments tested whether engaging in actions by personal choice versus external task assignment moderates the effect of incidental affective stimulation on action control (volition). As choice of an action al- ternative has been found to lead to strong goal commitment, an implemental mindset, and determined task focus, we reasoned that it sho...

Public health campaigns often encourage people to increase the consumption of vegetables and fruits while limiting sugar, fat, and salt intake. Furthermore, recent approaches increasingly suggest accumulating small behavioral shifts to change eating behavior. However, when individuals actually do notice a positive change in their diet behavior has...

Mastering global challenges such as the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic requires implementing effective responses at various social levels. Leadership teams (governmental, industrial) need to integrate available information to introduce effective regulation and update their decisions as new information becomes available. Groups (families, peers, teams) n...

The self-regulation strategy of forming implementation intentions has now been studied for almost 30 years. We trace the development of this research and explicate the questions that have been addressed. We then present current research that investigates the consequences of implementation intentions for flexible goal striving, behaviour in situatio...

In two studies, emotion emphasis effects on moral judgment are demonstrated. The studies indicate that emphasizing negative consequences in trolley-type dilemmas with emotional language produces more utilitarian responses if such emphasis is on the consequences of the deontological option, and more deontological responses if it is on the consequenc...

Groups need contributions that are personally costly to their members. Such cooperation is only adaptive when others cooperate as well, as unconditional cooperation may incur high costs to the individual. We argue that individuals can use We-if-then plans (collective implementation intentions, cIIs) to regulate their group-directed behavior strateg...

Moral and immoral actions often involve multiple individuals who play different roles in bringing about the outcome. For example, one agent may deliberate and decide what to do while another may plan and implement that decision. We suggest that the Mindset Theory of Action Phases provides a useful lens through which to understand these cases and th...

If-then planning (implementation intentions) describes a self-regulatory strategy that helps people to attain their goals across a variety of domains, such as achieving physical activity goals. Based on such beneficial effects, if-then plans are anecdotally discussed as a strategy to enhance sports-related performance as well. However, this discuss...

Purpose Crises such as the Coronavirus pandemic pose extraordinary challenges to the decision making in management teams. Teams need to integrate available information quickly to make informed decisions on the spot and update their decisions as new information becomes available. Moreover, making good decisions is hard as it requires sacrifices for...

Objective: Brief interventions based on personalized feedback have shown promising results in reducing risky alcohol use among university students. We investigated the effects of activating deliberative (predecisional) or implemental (postdecisional) mindsets on the effectiveness of a standardized brief intervention, the ASSIST-linked Brief Interve...

Objective: Brief interventions based on personalized feedback have shown promising results in reducing risky alcohol use among university students. We investigated the effects of activating deliberative (predecisional) or implemental (postdecisional) mindsets on the effectiveness of a standardized brief intervention, the ASSIST-linked Brief Interve...

Deliberation is commonly assumed to be a central characteristic of humans' higher cognitive functions, and the responses following deliberation are attributed to mechanisms that are qualitatively different from lower-level associative or affectively driven responses. In contrast to this perspective, the current article's aim is to draw attention to...

Objective: While behavioral recommendations regarding physical activity commonly focus on reaching demanding goals by proposing “thresholds,” little attention has been paid to the question of how much of a behavioral change is needed to make people feel that they have changed. The present research investigated this relation between actual and felt...

Purpose This study aims to take a dual-process perspective and argues that peer influence on increasing impulse buying may also operate automatically. If-then plans, which can automate action control, may, thus, help regulate peer influence. This research extends existing literature explicating the deliberate influence of social norms. Design/meth...

The model of action phases makes a distinction between motivational (goal setting) and volitional (goal implementation) phases of goal pursuit. The model implies that changing the behavior of individuals who are in a pre-decisional action phase (i.e., have not crossed the “Rubicon” yet with respect to turning their many wishes into binding goals) n...

Surprisingly little experimental research has been conducted regarding the origins of obsessive thinking. Based on prior research on basic psychological needs (Sheldon and Gunz in J Pers 77(5):1467–1492, 2009) and future fantasies (Kappes and Oettingen in J Exp Soc Psychol 47(4):719–729, 2011), we proposed that a threat to the need for relatedness...

Insights into the processes underlying observed decisions are crucial for a comprehensive understanding of behavior. We investigate how individual social value orientation (SVO) relates to controlled information acquisition and how this relationship may be governed by intuitive versus reflective decision modes. We measure controlled information acq...

At a 2015 campaign event, Donald Trump claimed, “I have the best words.” While remarks like these have inspired extensive commentary on grandiosity in politics, few studies have investigated how grandiosity manifests in political speech. This research finds that grandiose U.S. presidents ( n = 35) use words differently than their humbler presidenti...

This book provides an overview of key processes relevant to disturbances in positive valence systems; discusses cutting-edge advances on positive emotion disturbance in key clinical disorders, translational applications, and targeted treatment foci; discusses conceptualizations of psychopathology and models of positive emotion disturbances; and sug...

Insights into the processes underlying observed decisions are crucial for a comprehensive understanding of behavior. We investigate how individual social value orientation (SVO) relates to controlled information acquisition and how this relationship may be governed by intuitive versus reflective decision modes. We measure controlled information acq...

Objective: The importance of getting a good night sleep is critical, yet for many this remains elusive. Bedtime procrastination—the notion that people delay going to bed for no legitimate reason—is one area that has received little attention, despite its associations with worse sleep outcomes. In the present research, we investigated how to effecti...

The Oxford Handbook of Human Motivation, Second Edition, addresses key advances made in the field since the previous edition, offering the latest insights from the top theorists and researchers of human motivation. The volume includes chapters on social learning theory, control theory, self-determination theory, terror management theory, and regula...

In this chapter, we introduce Mindset theory of Action Phases (MAP) and the self-regulation strategy of implementation intentions. MAP proposes four successive distinct phases through which one traverses during goal pursuit. During each phase, the goal-striving individual faces different challenges, and the activation of specific cognitive procedur...

Objective: We assessed the effectiveness of mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII), an established self-regulatory strategy, as a brief online smoking behaviour change intervention. We expected that MCII would enhance smoking reduction among the highly cigarette dependent because MCII is most effective for challenging pursuits. De...

Introduction. Drinking alcohol has detrimental health consequences, and effective interventions to reduce hazardous drinking are needed. The self-regulation intervention of Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions (MCII) promotes behavior change across a variety of health behaviors. In this study, we tested if online delivery of MCII reduc...

“Green” self-identity, that is, how much individuals view themselves as environmentalists, generally predicts pro-environmental intentions and behaviour. Factors moderating the strength of this link are, however, not clear yet. In the present paper, we examine how past green behaviour and majority/minority support for environmental values conjointl...

Enduring physical strain is an important ability and prototypically required in athletic activities. However, little is known about the psychological determinants of endurance performance and their underlying neural mechanisms. Here, we investigated self-regulation as one such factor. We recruited 60 participants who hold intertwined rings for as l...

As anger can lead to aggressive behavior aiming at intentionally hurting somebody, the prevention of its destructive consequences with effective emotion regulation strategies is crucial. Two studies tested the idea that mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII) interventions would be effective in down-regulating anger. In Study 1, pa...

In the present article, I will try to elucidate how relying on the goal concept facilitates the development and testing of theories in the science of motivation. For this purpose, I will focus on those theories whose development I was closely involved with: the self-completion theory (Wicklund & Gollwitzer, 1982), the mindset theory of action phase...

The aim of our internet-based intervention study was to find out whether healthcare professionals can autonomously down-regulate the stress they experience at their workplace, using an established self-regulation tool called Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions (MCII). Applying MCII to reduce stress implied for our participants to repe...

The Rubicon model of behavioral phases distinguishes between four phases: weighing, planning, acting, and evaluating. Each phase instigates different mental states which are conducive to successfully completing the tasks each of them requires. This chapter first provides an overview of the previously studied effects of these mental states during th...

Im Rubikon-Modell der Handlungsphasen werden vier Phasen unterschieden: Abwägen, Planen, Handeln und Bewerten. Das Engagement in diese vier Aktivitäten instigiert eine jeweils andere Bewusstseinslage, die dazu dient, die typisch anfallenden Aufgaben erfolgreich zu bewältigen. Wir geben einen Überblick über die bisher untersuchten Effekte der Bewuss...

Objective: Stroke is the most common cause of physical impairment, and having already had a stroke dramatically increases the risk of having another one. Although greater physical activity lowers rates of stroke recurrence, patients often fail to act in line with this recommendation. The present intervention tested whether teaching the self-regula...

Background: After stroke, the learned non-use of a paretic arm is a major obstacle to the improvement of hand function. Objective: We examined whether patients with a central paresis could profit from applying the self-regulation strategy of making if-then plans that specify situational triggers to using the paretic arm. Method: Seventeen stro...

We provide a theoretical framework and empirical evidence for how verbally planning an action creates direct perception-action links and behavioral automaticity. We argue that planning actions in an if (situation)–then (action) format induces sensorimotor simulations (i.e., activity patterns reenacting the event in the sensory and motor brain areas...

In two experiments, we investigated the downstream consequences of activating deliberative versus implemental mindsets on risk perception (Experiment 1) and risk-taking behavior (Experiment 2). We hypothesized that participants in an implemental versus deliberative mindset arrive at more optimistic judgments about their own risks of experiencing ne...

Background : Following through on one's goals to study is essential for effective, self-regulated learning. This can be difficult for residents because of clinical demands and limited personal time. WOOP (Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan) is a self-regulation strategy, also known as mental contrasting with implementation intentions. WOOP increases fo...

In recent years, psychologists have started to investigate the downstream consequences of nonconsciously activated behaviour (acting in an ‘explanatory vacuum’). Results have shown that when such behaviour is norm-violating, people experience a need to confabulate reasons for this behaviour. The present paper aims to add more convincing evidence fo...

There are two key motivators to perform well in a group: making a contribution that (a) is crucial for the group (indispensability) and that (b) the other group members recognize (identifiability). We argue that indispensability promotes setting collective (" We ") goals whereas identifiability induces individual (" I ") goals. Although both goals...

Two studies examined whether implementation intentions, self-regulatory “if-then” plans, can alter social projection – people's tendency to automatically assume that other people share their attitudes. In Study 1 (N = 120), participants provided their attitudes on twenty items (e.g., “I like mechanics magazines”), and then formed either (1) a goal...