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Psychology & Health
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Changing eating behaviour vs. losing weight: The role of goal focus for
weight loss in overweight women
Alexandra M. Freund
a
; Marie Hennecke
a
a
Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Binzmuehlestrasse 14/11, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland
First published on: 14 June 2011
To cite this Article Freund, Alexandra M. and Hennecke, Marie(2011) 'Changing eating behaviour vs. losing weight: The
role of goal focus for weight loss in overweight women', Psychology & Health,, First published on: 14 June 2011 (iFirst)
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/08870446.2011.570867
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08870446.2011.570867
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Psychology and Health
2011, 1–18, iFirst
Changing eating behaviour vs. losing weight: The role of goal
focus for weight loss in overweight women
Alexandra M. Freund
*
and Marie Hennecke
Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Binzmuehlestrasse 14/11,
8050 Zurich, Switzerland
(Received 9 August 2010; final version received 8 March 2011)
A 6-week longitudinal study with N ¼ 126 overweight women participating
in a weight-loss programme investigated the hypothesis that focusing on
the process (dietary behaviours) rather than on the outcome of dieting
(weight loss) is associated with more successful goal pursuit and achieve-
ment. As expected, process focus was related positively to subjective
daily success in dieting as well as to actual weight loss, and negatively to
deviations from the diet. In contrast, outcome focus had a negative impact
on successful dieting: focusing on weight loss was marginally negatively
related to actual weight loss and was associated with more disinhibition
after lapses. Confirming hypotheses, self-regulation failure (i.e. deviations
from the diet, disinhibition) was negatively related to daily affective well-
being. Contrary to hypotheses, however, goal focus was not directly
associated with affective well-being but only indirectly through self-
regulation. Focusing on the process rather than on the outcome of dieting,
then, might help achieving difficult health-related goals and support
self-regulation but does not contribute directly to affective well-being.
Keywords: overweight; eating behaviour; dieting; self-regulation; goal
focus; means; outcomes
Introduction
Changing one’s eating behaviour is challenging. Eating behaviour is highly
habitualised and triggered very frequently, namely each time a person experiences
hunger or appetite, or is confronted with food-related stimuli. Not surprisingly, then,
people have difficulties adhering to diets when they want to lose weight. The benefits
of goal setting, planning and formulating implementation intentions have been
investigated in various domains of health-related behaviour including dieting
(e.g. Achtziger, Gollwitzer, & Sheeran, 2008). To the best of our knowledge,
however, nothing is known about the role of goal focus on successfully adhering to
a diet, that is whether people focus more on the means (i.e. the process) or the ends
(i.e. the outcomes) when pursuing the goal of losing weight. This study investigated
the role of goal focus for weight loss and self-regulation in overweight women
participating in a diet programme.
*Corresponding author. Email: freund@psychologie.uzh.ch
ISSN 0887–0446 print/ISSN 1476–8321 online
ß 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/08870446.2011.570867
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Goal focus and dieting
Obesity and overweight is becoming a more and more pressing health issue
worldwide (Puska, Nishida, & Porter, 2003). According to the WHO (2000), one of
the main reasons underlying obesity and overweight is the consumption of high
caloric and fast food. Changing one’s eating behaviour, however, is difficult and
dieters fail regularly to do so (Stroebe, 2008). We propose that one of the factors that
might help pursuing the difficult goal of dieting and losing weight is whether people
focus on the process or the outcome of their weight-loss goal.
Goals can be defined as cognitive representations of personally desired
(or dreaded) states to be approached (or avoided) through certain means
(Kruglanski, 1996). People can focus on the outcome of goal pursuit (short- and
long-term consequences) or on the process of goal pursuit (means of goal
attainment). Following Sansone and Thoman (2005), we define outcome focus as
the motivation to engage in an activity because it leads to a certain end. In other
words, the outcome of an activity is in the focus of attention. In contrast, process
focus refers to a higher salience of the means of goal pursuit (see, e.g. Pham &
Taylor, 1999).
The adaptiveness of goal focus depends on the goal at hand. Zimmerman and
Kitsantas (1997, 1999) provide evidence that when learning to master a new task,
process focus helps the acquisition of the necessary goal-relevant means. In contrast,
focusing on the outcome seems to distract from the acquisition and practicing of the
goal-relevant means and thereby hinder successful goal pursuit. An outcome focus
might require that the different aspects of the goal-relevant means are already
mastered and integrated into an action sequence so that they no longer require
attention. Starting a new diet, then, should profit from a process focus as it draws
attention to monitoring the behaviour change. It might thus prevent falling back on
routinised eating behaviour. Vallacher, Wegner, and Somoza (1989) also showed
that a process focus was beneficial for a difficult task whereas an outcome focus led
to better performance when the task was easy. Note, however, that one study by
Greitemeyer and Wurz (2006) showed no differences between induced process
and outcome focus on the achievement of individual, health-related goals, regardless
of goal difficulty.
In the context of the goal to start exercising, Freund, Hennecke, and Riediger
(2010) found that process focus was positively related to satisfaction with the goal,
affective well-being and higher persistence in goal pursuit over a period of 3 months.
This latter research example shows that it is not only the acquisition of new skills
(most likely, exercise beginners know how to run on a treadmill or to do push-ups)
but also the self-regulation that is required to adhere to the exercise regimen. This
is very similar in the case of starting a diet. The most difficult part is most likely not
to follow the recipe book and prepare the meals according to the diet but to adhere
to the diet and not lapse into old eating habits.
Work by Taylor on mental simulation of the process or the outcome of a goal
is also highly relevant in this context (Taylor, Pham, Rivkin, & Armor, 1998). This
study generally shows that process simulations are more beneficial than imagining
the achievement of the outcome. In the context of academic performance, Pham and
Taylor (1999) showed that students performed better on their exams when adopting
a process focus (i.e. mentally simulating studying for the exam) as compared to an
outcome focus (i.e. visualising themselves getting a high grade). Again, presumably
2 A.M. Freund and M. Hennecke
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all students know how to study for an exam, and the difficulty of goal pursuit and
achievement lies in the high demands on self-regulation required for studying
regularly (see also the work by Escalas and Luce, 2003, 2004, on the superior
performance when focusing on the process rather the outcome in the context of
consumer behaviour). Attesting to the potential negative effect of adopting an
outcome focus when pursuing the difficult goal of losing weight, Oettingen
and Wadden (1991) showed that positive fantasies about having lost weight were
negatively related to actual weight loss. According to Oettingen and Wadden,
indulging in positive fantasies might have led dieters to daydream about the positive
outcome without having to engage in the more difficult goal pursuit of dieting.
This and other research by Oettingen (1996) suggests that focusing on a positive
outcome is detrimental rather than conducive to goal pursuit and achievement. Note,
that positive fantasies overlap conceptually but are not the same as an outcome
focus. Whereas outcome focus denotes the cognitive salience of the outcome
(e.g. weight loss) compared to the means of goal pursuit (e.g. dieting), positive
fantasies involve highly positive, concrete images and scenes anticipating the positive
effects of goal achievement on an imaginary level (e.g. ‘Everybody will look at me
with great admiration when I show off my slimmer figure in a bikini’). Moreover,
research on fantasies does not include or compare outcome-related fantasies with a
process-related cognitive focus. In contrast, the present research investigates both
process and outcome focus.
Heckhausen’s model of action phases and the related model of cognitive mind-
sets accompanying the different motivational phases (Gollwitzer, 1990; Heckhausen
& Gollwitzer, 1987) proposes that during the actional phase of goal pursuit,
individuals would and should not think about or evaluate the means of their goal
pursuit but rather be closed-minded and sustain their chosen path of action
We assume that especially after setbacks it is most adaptive to reevaluate the
employed goal-relevant means by going back to an implemental mind-set and
thinking about other paths that might help to overcome the obstacle. In contrast,
focusing on the outcome might distract from good opportunities to implement goal-
relevant means and might thereby even hinder goal achievement. Particularly, when
long-term goals are pursued that require the maintenance of goal-relevant actions
over an extended period of time, focusing on the means rather than the negative
discrepancy to a desired outcome should help maintaining motivation even in the
face of hindrances or setbacks (Kuhl & Beckmann, 1994). A focus on the outcome
(i.e. the desired weight) is more likely to discourage dieting when weight loss is slow,
than a focus on preparing certain foods.
Goal focus and the self-regulation of eating
Self-regulation seems crucial for the difficult task of changing one’s eating behaviour
for various reasons (Stroebe, 2008). First, eating behaviour has a habitual nature.
Habits are routine repetitions of behaviours cued by environmental stimuli rather
than personal goals, intentions or thoughts (Wood, Quinn, & Kashy, 2002). Habits,
then, are under stimulus control and breaking automatic routines requires
monitoring and self-regulation, both of which are effortful and demanding
(Baumeister, Muraven, & Tice, 2000). Second, unlike other habits such as gambling,
people have to eat and food-related cues that trigger eating habits cannot be avoided.
Psychology and Health 3
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Third, eating constitutes an immediate reward whereas weight loss and good health
are more distant rewards. Effortful self-regulation is needed to resist the temptation
of immediate gratification in favour of future outcomes (Baumeister et al., 2000;
Mischel, Cantor, & Feldman, 1996). For these reasons, many people have such a
hard time to lose weight. We propose that whether people focus on the process or the
outcome of their weight-loss goal might support self-regulation when changing their
eating behaviour and influence whether people succeed in losing weight in at least
two ways. First, a process focus while dieting is closely related to monitoring what
one eats (rather than how much weight one has already lost), thereby making the
adherence to the dietary restrictions more likely and deviations less likely. Second,
focusing on the means rather than the outcome of the goal to lose weight might help
against ‘what the hell’ cognitions after lapses and subsequent disinhibition in eating
(Cochran & Tesser, 1996; Polivy & Herman, 1985). ‘What the hell’ cognitions and
disinhibition typically occur when dieters feel that after having transgressed against
the dietary restrictions, they might eat even more because the number of calories
allowed for the day can no longer be achieved anyway. If people are highly outcome-
focused, disinhibited eating is likely to be represented as having failed to get
closer to the desired outcome, which, in turn, might undermine the motivation to
maintain the difficult goal. Instead, when focusing on the individual meals as means
of the dieting goal, having transgressed once might lead dieters to adhere to the
restrictions of the next meal instead of interpreting the one lapse as a failure to
achieve one’s goal.
In sum, then, the goal of losing weight should profit from a predominant process
focus. Our main hypothesis states that a stronger process than outcome focus
contributes to weight loss in dieters. Moreover, we hypothesise that a stronger
process focus is related to fewer failures in self-regulation. Specifically, we assume
that a process focus is negatively related to deviations from the diet and
disinhibition. In turn, these self-regulation variables should be negatively related
to weight loss. Taken together, this results in a mediation hypothesis where the
relation between process focus and weight loss is expected to be mediated through
fewer self-regulation failures. Moreover, we expect failures in self-regulation to be
negatively related to weight loss and to also negatively impact dieters’ affective well-
being.
Finally, goal focus might also be related to affective well-being during the diet.
Adopting an outcome focus might highlight the negative discrepancy between
the actual and the desired end-state and, thereby, be related to negative affect.
In contrast, a process focus does not entail such a focus on the discrepancy
towards the desired end-state. When focusing on the means, goal pursuit itself might
highlight the fact that the person is doing something for goal attainment and is
moving forward on the path to goal attainment. Thereby, process focus might be
related to the experience of positive affective well-being. In fact, previous
research has found the relationship of goal focus and affective well-being (Freund
et al., 2010).
As is known from goal-setting theory, difficult goals might be more easily
achieved when they are more concrete (e.g. Locke & Latham, 2002). As means are
typically more concrete than outcomes (Carver & Scheier, 1995; Vallacher &
Wegner, 1985), we investigated if the potential effect of goal focus is due to subjective
concreteness of the process and outcomes of the dieting goal.
4 A.M. Freund and M. Hennecke
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Methods
Participants
The study targeted overweight and obese women who shared the goal of losing
weight, and wanted to participate in a 6-week diet. Participants were recruited
through advertisements in local newspapers. In short phone interviews prior to the
study, women were asked to report their weight and height in order to ensure that
they were actually overweight. We adopted the criterion provided by the World
Health Organization that defines overweight as exceeding a body mass index
(BMI ¼ kg m
2
) of 25. The sample of women fulfilling this criterion consisted of
N ¼ 126 women aged between 19 and 77 years (M ¼ 47.2, SD ¼ 15.9) with an initial
BMI ranging from 25 to 46 (M ¼ 31.6, SD ¼ 5.0). They reported to be overweight for
1–43 years (M ¼ 13.8, SD ¼ 9.3) and wanted to lose at least 4.4 pounds (M ¼ 27.0,
SD ¼ 18.3) over the course of 6 weeks. 39% of the sample had finished high
school with the university entrance qualification degree, and 52% had finished an
apprenticeship.
Of the initial sample of 126 overweight women, n ¼ 33 (26%) dropped out over
the 6-week period of the study. Goal focus did not differ between participants
remaining in the study (process focus: M ¼ 4.24, SD ¼ 1.56; outcome focus:
M ¼ 4.07, SD ¼ 1.73) and those who dropped out (process focus: M ¼ 4.44,
SD ¼ 1.45, t(638) ¼1.14, p ¼ 0.25; outcome focus M ¼ 4.17, SD ¼ 1.65,
t(638) ¼0.53, p ¼ 0.59).
Procedure
The study consisted of seven measurement occasions over a period of 7.5 weeks.
T1 (two to five days before starting the diet) and T7 (1 week after the official ending
of the diet) were questionnaire sessions held in groups in our lab, allowing us not
only to explain the diet but also to measure the weight and height of the participants.
Participants were instructed to start with the diet on the Monday following T1.
All agreed to adhere to the diet for at least 6 weeks. In addition, each Saturday
during the 6-week dieting phase participants filled out weekly online questionnaires
reporting on their dieting behaviour and affective well-being. The questionnaires
were administered via the PHPSurveyor tool for online surveys (now: www.lime-
survey.org). As a reminder, participants received e-mails including a link to the
questionnaire.
T1 consisted of a questionnaire session and a subsequent instruction to the diet
in groups of 2–25 women. In the instruction part of T1, participants were introduced
to the diet (‘Brigitte Diaet’; Gerlach, Ort-Gottwald, & Petersen, 2007) and, as one of
the incentives to participate in the study, received a free copy of the book that
explained the diet in detail and provided a large number of recipes from which the
dieter can choose. This diet was chosen because an independent German consumer
organisation recommended it as a healthy balanced diet with a high probability for
successful weight loss and subsequent maintenance (Stiftung Warentest, 2005). The
‘Brigitte’ diet comprises a daily intake of whole foods adding up to 1200 kcal and
including 40 g fat. The diet is balanced and consists to a large degree of fresh fruit
and vegetables that are portioned into five meals each day. In addition, the book
encourages physical exercise. Importantly, the ‘Brigitte’ diet does not encourage
Psychology and Health 5
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focusing on the process or the outcome of dieting. Participation was reimbursed with
70 Swiss Franks ($60).
Weekly measures
Each week, participants filled out a web-based questionnaire. Means and SDs
for these measures are provided across all measurement occasions. For this set of
analyses we used the following measures. If not noted otherwise, rating scales ranged
from 0 ¼ not at all to 6 ¼ very much.
Goal focus
Participants indicated on two newly developed items how much they focused on the
process and the outcomes of dieting, respectively (‘During the last week, how much
did you think ...’‘...about what you have to do to eat low-caloric and low-fat?’
[process focus; M ¼ 4.27, SD ¼ 1.53] ‘..., about what weighing less would be like?’
[outcome focus; M ¼ 4.07, SD ¼ 1.71]). As an index for reliability of these measures,
we computed Cronbach’s alpha across the six measurement occasions, yielding
satisfactory retest reliabilities (for process focus, alpha ¼ 0.83, for outcome focus,
alpha ¼ 0.87).
Process and outcome focus were correlated with r ¼ 0.70 (p 5 0.001). This
indicates that they share a substantial amount of variance, probably tapping into the
importance of the goal. If a goal is subjectively very important, it is likely that people
report to think much about both the process and the outcome of goal pursuit.
Note, however, that the multilevel analyses that were employed to investigate the
effect of process and outcome focus on self-regulation, weight loss and affective well-
being involve a simultaneous estimation of the effects of the two constructs.
Therefore, the effect of each of the two goal foci can be interpreted as independent
of the effect of the other.
Concreteness of process vs. outcome
Participants indicated how concrete they perceived the process and outcomes of
dieting on two items each (‘During the last week, how concrete was ...’‘... your idea
about what it means to eat according to the diet?’ [process concreteness], ‘... the way
you would look like after the diet?’ [outcome focus]). As expected, the process of
dieting (M ¼ 4.86, SD ¼ 1.22) was judged as more concrete than its outcomes
(M ¼ 4.30, SD ¼ 1.45, t(595) ¼9.42, p 5 0.001). Therefore, we included perceived
process and outcome concreteness in the analyses, which allowed us to test if
concreteness drives the effects of goal focus on the outcomes.
Again, Cronbach’s alphas across the six measurement occasions yielded
satisfactory retest reliabilities (for process concreteness, alpha ¼ 0.93, for outcome
concreteness, alpha ¼ 0.89). Process and outcome concreteness were correlated with
r ¼ 0.51 (p 5 0.001).
Theoretically, goal focus and concreteness are related (e.g., Carver & Scheier,
1995; Vallacher & Wegner, 1985) but not redundant (Freund et al., 2010). To test
whether our measures of goal focus and concreteness were also empirically distinct,
we computed the correlation between these two constructs. Across measurement
6 A.M. Freund and M. Hennecke
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occasions, the correlation of process focus and process concreteness was r ¼ 0.41
(p 5 0.001), the correlation of outcome focus and outcome concreteness was r ¼ 0.50
(p 5 0.001).
Affective well-being
A 12-item short version of the multidimensional mood questionnaire (Steyer,
Schwenkmezger, Notz, & Eid, 1997) was used to capture weekly affective well-being,
with six items reflecting positive affect (e.g. ease, alertness) and six items reflecting
negative affect (e.g. fatigue, restlessness). The positive and negative affect scales of
this questionnaire are balanced regarding the dimensions of arousal and vigilance.
Participants were asked to indicate how often they had experienced each affect
during the past week using a 7-point rating scale (0 ¼ never, 6 ¼ very often). We
computed two separate aggregate scores indicating positive and negative affect at
each measurement occasion (positive affect: all Cronbach’s alphas 40.74; M ¼ 4.22,
SD ¼ 1.17, negative affect: all Cronbach’s alphas 40.86; M ¼ 1.41, SD ¼ 1.28).
Subjective success
We also assessed how successful the dieters perceived themselves to be regarding
their dieting compliance with the single item ‘How successful have you complied with
the Brigitte diet today?’ (M ¼ 3.61, SD ¼ 1.79). Cronbach’s alpha across the six
measurement occasions attests a retest reliability of alpha ¼ 0.80.
Self-regulation failure
We included two indicators of self-regulation failure.
Deviations from the diet
Deviations were assessed using the single item ‘How much did you deviate from the
dietary requirements during the last week?’ (M ¼ 2.28, SD ¼ 1.73).
Disinhibition after failure
Disinhibition was assessed using the mean across six bipolar items that contrasted
disinhibition with compensation for lapses (e.g. ‘Whenever I could not resist a
temptation, I stopped dieting for that day.’; Hennecke & Freund, 2010). Higher
scores indicate a tendency to show disinhibited eating after dieting lapses, whereas
lower scores indicate compensation (all Cronbach’s alphas 40.64; M ¼ 2.66,
SD ¼ 1.29).
Weight loss
A research assistant measured the participants’ weight before and after the diet by
using a scale in our laboratory. Across the sample, participants lost on average
M ¼ 6.47 pounds ( SD ¼ 5.5; range between 5.17 and 20.9) over the course of the
6-week diet.
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Statistical analyses
With the exception of weight loss, constructs were assessed weekly during the
6 weeks of dieting. Given the nature of these data with measurement occasions
(level 1) being nested within persons (level 2), multilevel regression analyses (linear
mixed model procedure with SPSS.16) were used. Restricted maximum likelihood
parameter estimates were obtained by fitting multilevel regression models with
first-order autoregressive residual covariance structures. The interpretation of the
multilevel fixed effects shown is equivalent to that of parameter estimates in ordinary
least squares regression. Multilevel models included only the estimation of fixed
effects on the prediction of participants’ weekly reports of positive and negative
affect, deviations from the diet and disinhibition by goal focus and the concreteness
of process vs. outcome (all level 1). All predictors were grand-mean centred prior to
analyses.
To analyse the effects of goal focus and the concreteness of process vs. outcome
on weight loss, ordinary linear regression analyses were conducted.
Results
Goal focus and weight-loss
Supporting our main hypothesis, process focus was significantly positively related
to weight loss ( ¼ 0.50, p ¼ 0.01), outcome focus was marginally significant
negatively related to weight loss ( ¼0.35, p ¼ 0.06). The positive effect of process
concreteness on weight loss was marginally significant ( ¼ 0.23, p ¼ 0.09). There was
no effect of outcome concreteness on weight loss ( ¼ –0.19, p ¼ 0.21, overall
R
2
¼ 0.14, F ¼ 3.39, p ¼ 0.01).
Goal focus and indicators of self-regulation failure
Table 1 summarises the results of the multi level analyses regarding the predictive
power of goal focus on indicators of self-regulation failure. As expected, process
focus was related negatively to deviations from the diet. Outcome focus was
positively related to disinhibition after failure. In contrast, concreteness was
unrelated to all these indicators of self-regulation failure.
Goal focus and indicators of affective well-being
Table 2 shows that, contrary to hypotheses, neither positive nor negative affect was
significantly predicted by goal focus. However, process focus was related positively
to the participants’ subjective experience of their dieting success.
Self-regulation failure
Do the indicators of self-regulation failure contribute to weight loss? As expected,
both self-regulation failure constructs evinced significant negative effects on weight
loss: r ¼0.50, p 5 0.001 for deviations from the diet; r ¼0.37, p 5 0.001 for
disinhibition after lapses. A linear regression analysis was used to estimate the
relative impact of each of the two indicators of self-regulation failure (all centred,
8 A.M. Freund and M. Hennecke
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Table 1. Results from multilevel regression models: Estimates of fixed effects predicting deviations from diet and disinhibition (N ¼ 126, maximum six
assessments).
Deviations Disinhibition
Parameter Estimate (SE ) t (approximate df ) p Estimate (SE ) t (approximate df ) p
Intercept 2.93 (0.34) 8.58 (474) 50.001 2.68 (0.25) 10.58 (502) 50.001
Process focus Z0.16 (0.07) Z2.48 (573) 0.01 0.03 (0.05) 0.67 (561) 0.50
Outcome focus 0.09 (0.06) 1.43 (590) 0.16 0.09 (0.04) 2.14 (586) 0.03
Process concreteness 0.08 (0.07) 1.19 (577) 0.23 0.05 (0.05) 0.95 (588) 0.34
Outcome concreteness 0.02 (0.06) 0.35 (556) 0.73 0.00 (0.04) 0.04 (574) 0.97
Notes: The full models included two levels, namely, assessments nested within persons. Level 1 comprised assessments: Dependent variable ¼
0j
þ r
ij
.
Level 2 comprised persons:
0j
¼
00
þ
01
process focus
ij
þ
02
outcome focus
ij
þ
03
process concreteness
ij
þ
04
process concreteness
ij
þ u
0j
.
Psychology and Health 9
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Table 2. Results from multilevel regression models: Estimates of fixed effects predicting positive affect, negative affect and subjective success (N ¼ 126,
maximum six assessments).
Positive affect
a
Negative affect
b
Subjective success
Estimate (SE ) t (approximate df ) p Estimate (SE ) t (approximate df ) p Estimate (SE ) t (approximate df ) p
Intercept 2.86 (0.30) 9.44 (289) 50.001 0.62 (0.27) 2.30 (342) 0.022 2.10 (0.34) 6.17 (458) 50.001
Process focus 0.04 (0.04) 0.99 (590) 0.32 0.03 (0.05) 0.61 (590) 0.54 0.27 (0.07) 3.96 (584) _0.001
Outcome focus 0.01 (0.04) 0.31 (581) 0.76 0.02 (0.05) 0.35 (581) 0.72 0.04 (0.06) 0.61 (590) 0.55
Process concreteness 0.01 (0.05) 0.17 (525) 0.87 0.02 (0.05) 0.32 (525) 0.75 0.04 (0.07) 0.60 (561) 0.55
Outcome concreteness 0.04 (0.04) 0.95 (505) 0.34 0.03 (0.04) 0.67 (506) 0.50 0.10 (0.06) 1.61 (539.24) 0.11
Notes: The full models included two levels, namely, assessments nested within persons. Level 1 comprised assessments: Dependent variable ¼
0j
þ r
ij
.
Level 2 comprised persons:
0j
¼
00
þ
01
process focus
ij
þ
02
outcome focus
ij
þ
03
process concreteness
ij
þ
04
process concreteness
ij
þ u
0j
.
a
Results after controlling for baseline positive affect (Estimate ¼ 0.36, SE ¼ 0.05, t(166) ¼ 6.77, p 5 0.001).
b
Results after controlling for baseline negative affect (Estimate ¼ 0.30, SE ¼ 0.05, t(163) ¼ 5.68, p 5 0.001).
10 A.M. Freund and M. Hennecke
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aggregated across measurement points) for actual weight loss. Only deviations from
the diet emerged as a significant predictor of weight loss ( ¼0.42, p 5 0.001;
disinhibition ¼0.14, p ¼ 0.20; overall model: R
2
¼ 0.26, F(2,87) ¼ 15.62,
p 5 0.001).
As a next step, we explored if the relationship between goal focus and weight loss
might be mediated by self-regulation failure following Baron and Kenny (1986). The
first step, the significant association between goal focus and weight loss, was
established (see above). In the second step, we conducted a regression analyses with
goal focus as predictors of the aggregated self-regulation failure variables.
Replicating the results of multilevel analyses, the relationship between outcome
focus and disinhibition was significant ( ¼ 0.34, p ¼ 0.04). Finally, we conducted a
hierarchical regression analysis entering process and outcome focus in the first step
and disinhibition in the second. Results do not suggest a mediation: the regression
weights of outcome focus on weight loss changed only slightly after inclusion of
disinhibition in the prediction (from ¼0.44, p ¼ 0.01 to ¼0.35 p ¼ 0.03).
Together, goal focus and disinhibition predicted 23% of the variance in actual weight
loss (F(3, 86) ¼ 8.44, p 5 0.001; disinhibition: ¼0.35, p ¼ 0.001).
1
To test the predicted associations of the two indicators of self-regulation failure
to affective well-being, another set of multilevel regression analyses were conducted
(Table 3). As expected, deviations from the diet and disinhibition were significantly
associated with lower positive affect and higher negative affect as well as subjective
daily dieting success. When entered simultaneously, disinhibition but not deviations
predicted positive and negative affect.
Discussion
Anyone who has tried to change their eating behaviour knows how difficult this is.
This study suggests that focusing on the process rather than the desired outcome of
the behaviour change might be one of the factors contributing to successfully
pursuing such difficult goals. More specifically, focusing on the process of dieting
(the eating behaviour) was related to actual weight loss as well as to subjective
dieting success. In contrast, outcome focus was unrelated to subjective dieting
success and even marginally negatively to actual weight loss.
Moreover, goal focus was related to indicators of self-regulation failure, arguably
one of the key factors for maintaining a behavioural change over time (Baumeister &
Heatherton, 1996). Whereas process focus was negatively related to deviating from
the diet, outcome focus was associated with higher disinhibition after such
deviations. In other words, when focusing on the dietary behaviours, dieters were
more likely to actually adhere to the requirements of the diet. When transgressing,
people who focus more on the outcome of their dieting goal (i.e. losing weight), also
reported violating the diet even more instead of compensating for their transgression.
Higher perceived concreteness of the process (but not higher perceived
concreteness of the outcome) was marginally related to weight loss. However and
importantly, results of the analyses also show that the adaptiveness of a higher
process focus for self-regulation during the diet and actual weight loss was not due to
a higher concreteness of the process focus. Attesting to the role of goal focus above
and beyond perceived concreteness, perceived process and outcome concreteness
were unrelated to self-regulation failure whereas goal focus was.
Psychology and Health 11
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Table 3. Results from multilevel regression models: Estimates of fixed effects predicting positive and negative affect (N ¼ 126, maximum six
assessments).
Positive affect
a
Negative affect
b
Subjective success
Parameter Estimate (SE ) t (approximate df ) p Estimate (SE ) t (approximate df ) p Estimate (SE ) t (approximate df ) p
Intercept 4.20 (0.06) 75.35 (174) 50.001 1.43 (0.06) 22.48 (172) 50.000 4.77 (0.18) 26.98 (423) 50.001
Deviations 0.03 (0.03) 0.96 (583) 0.34 0.03 (0.03) 0.99 (586) 0.32 Z0.38 (0.04) Z9.24 (593) _0.001
Disinhibition Z0.09 (0.04) Z20.12 (590) 0.03 0.08 (0.04) 1.71 (591) 0.09 Z0.12 (0.06) Z2.18 (591) 0.03
Notes: The full model included two levels, namely assessments nested within persons. Level 1 comprised assessments: Dependent variable ¼
0j
þ r
ij
. Level
2 comprised persons:
0j
¼
00
þ
01
deviations
ij
þ
02
disinhibition
ij
þ u
0j
.
a
Results after controlling for baseline positive affect (Estimate ¼ 0.29, SE ¼ 0.05, t(177) ¼ 5.69, p 5 0.001).
b
Results after controlling for baseline negative affect (Estimate ¼ 0.25, SE ¼ 0.05, t(172) ¼ 4.87, p 5 0.001).
12 A.M. Freund and M. Hennecke
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This study also shows that self-regulation failure impacts positive and negative
affect much more than goal focus does. In fact, contrary to hypotheses, goal focus
was unrelated to measures of affective well-being. Goal focus, then, seems to be more
strongly related to motivation than to affect when pursuing a difficult long-term goal
such as losing weight. Goal focus was only indirectly associated with affective
well-being through self-regulation. Failing to regulate one’s behaviours and thoughts
as is the case in deviating from the diet or disinhibited eating after a lapse is
experienced directly and thus has a higher likelihood to affect one’s well-being than
the salience of the means or the outcome of a goal.
In this study, process focus was (negatively) related to deviations from the diet
but outcome focus was not. Conversely, outcome focus was (positively) related to
disinhibition but process focus was not. This pattern of results might indicate that
a process focus is associated with a vigilant monitoring of one’s goal-related
behaviour. If the process of dieting is highly salient, dieters might be more aware
of their food intake and compare it to the prescriptions by the diet. In contrast,
if people are more focused on the level of outcomes, they might also be more inclined
to temporarily switch from the goal to lose weight to the hedonic goal of enjoying
food if – internal or external – cues (e.g. craving certain foods or being at a dinner
party) prime the goal of food enjoyment rather that of dieting. Future studies using
social-cognitive paradigms are needed to further investigate the processes underlying
the dissociation of process and outcome focus in the prediction of deviations from
goal pursuit and disinhibition.
One of the limitations of this study is that goal focus was assessed rather than
experimentally induced. This leaves open if people who adopt a stronger process
might not differ in other variables such as time perspective that, in turn, might
influence self-regulation and weight loss. People who adopt a shorter time
perspective might also represent their goals in terms of the means rather than the
outcome (Trope & Liberman, 2003). In fact, we assume that a shorter time-
perspective is related to a stronger process focus (Freund et al., 2010). This study
did not include a measure of time perspective and cannot disentangle the effects
of the two.
Another limitation of this study concerns the assessment of process and outcome
focus. We have attempted at operationalising them as closely as possible to the
cognitive definition of goal focus underlying this article. Process focus is defined as
paying more attention to and thinking more about the means or actions that will
lead to the aspired outcome. In contrast, outcome focus denotes attending to and
thinking about the consequences of goal pursuit, namely about goal attainment.
Thus, we have asked participants how much they thought about the means (i.e. the
diet) or the outcome of their weight-loss goal (i.e. about weighing less). Most likely,
such thoughts also evoke emotions. The outcomes of weight loss such as feeling
healthier or looking more attractive are likely to be associated with positive feelings.
In contrast, thinking about preparing low-caloric food (process focus) for dieters
is arguably equally suffused with emotions. In the case of dieting, the means are
more likely to be evaluated negatively as most people do not enjoy to eat less or only
low-caloric food. Such affective concomitants of goal focus, one might argue, might
drive its effect on self-regulation and goal achievement. Future studies, therefore,
should also assess the more evaluative and affective aspects of process and outcome
focus. Note, however, that in this study we did not find any associations of goal
focus with emotional well-being.
Psychology and Health 13
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Moreover, in this study, process and outcome focus as well as their perceived
concreteness were assessed with single items. Given that participants had to fill out
a weekly measurement over the period of 6 weeks, we attempted to keep the time
demands on them as low as possible. Although reliabilities as indexed by internal
consistency across the six measurement occasions were substantial for all four
measures, a more comprehensive measure of goal focus and perceived concreteness
would be desirable.
The high consistency of goal focus over time suggests that these measures capture
some aspects of goal focus that are stable over time. However, given the dynamic
nature of goal representations during goal pursuit, it would be interesting to
investigate the fluctuation of outcome and process focus over time. In this study,
the fluctuation of goal focus was substantial.
2
Future studies are needed to address
the sources of this variation as well as their consequences for self-regulation and
goal achievement. It might be the case that the adaptiveness of process and outcome
focus varies for different motivational phases. Based on work by Gollwitzer (1990),
Freund, Hennecke, and Mustafic (in press) speculate that an outcome focus might be
most adaptive in the predecisional phase when advantages and disadvantages of a
goal need to be evaluated, whereas a process focus might be more adaptive during
the actional phase. As long-term goals might be questioned from time-to-time,
particularly when goal pursuit is difficult, slacking commitment might be increased
again by adopting an outcome focus. This might lead to fluctuations in goal focus
that might be systematic as well as adaptive.
This study only comprised a relatively short time window of 6 weeks, precluding
the investigation of possible changes of the effect of goal focus over time. Long-term
studies are needed for this purpose. Future studies should address the question if the
effect of goal focus changes over time. One might speculate that as experience with the
pursuit of a particular goal increases, positive effects of focusing on the process
decrease. With regard to weight loss, someone who has pursued this goal over
extended periods of time might have established new eating habits, ways of resisting
temptations and compensating for lapses from their diet. Such habits would no longer
require monitoring and a process focus might no longer be associated with weight loss
or maintenance. One could also hypothesise, however, that a lack of monitoring
the process of the goal to lose or maintain weight over time might lead to falling back
into one’s old eating habits. Long-term studies are needed to test such hypotheses.
Conclusion
This study focused on the role of goal focus for self-regulation and weight loss
in overweight women. It would be interesting to investigate in further studies if
results generalise to other target behaviours that require self-regulation such as to
quit smoking. For another difficult health-related behaviour, namely starting and
maintaining regular physical exercise, Freund et al. (2010) have already shown that
adopting a process focus is also helpful for goal pursuit as well as affective well-
being. Regarding performance, studies by Zimmerman and Kitsantas (1997, 1999)
support the adaptiveness of a process focus when learning dart throwing or writing
revisions, and the study by Pham and Taylor (1999) shows that mentally simulating
the process is more beneficial than simulating the outcome of passing an academic
exam. Taken together, there is growing evidence that a process focus contributes
to successful goal pursuit and achievement.
14 A.M. Freund and M. Hennecke
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This study contributes to the growing literature on the role of goal focus
for pursuing and achieving difficult health-related goals such as losing weight.
Results of this study suggest that the cognitive representation of the targeted goal
primarily in terms of the process or the outcome, respectively, is significantly related
to self-regulation of complex behaviours that require monitoring and maintenance
over extended periods of time (Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996; Stroebe, 2008). This
finding has important applied implications for programmes targeting behavioural
changes. Beyond increasing the concreteness of the goal, offering information about
the means to pursue a goal, and forming implementation intentions (e.g. Achtziger
et al., 2008; Gollwitzer, 1990), it seems a worthwhile avenue to focus people’s
attention on the means rather than the outcome of their goal in order to support
their self-regulation.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (100014-
116528) awarded to Alexandra M. Freund and a grant from the ‘Stiftung Hans und Suzanne
Bia
¨
sch fu
¨
r Angewandte Psychologie’ awarded to Marie Hennecke. They thank Axinja
Hachfeld for her support in preparing the Bia
¨
sch grant proposal, Ce
´
line Colombo
and Cornelia Buchmann for their assistance with data collection, the members of the Life-
Management Lab for fruitful discussions of the results of this study, and Tamara Herz for
carefully editing the manuscript. Marie Hennecke is a fellow of the International Max Planck
Research School on the Life Course (LIFE).
Notes
1. We also re-ran the analyses with a difference score by subtracting the rating of
the outcome focus from that of the process focus, such that 0 indicates no preference
(or co-occurrence), negative values a stronger outcome focus and positive values a
stronger process focus. These analyses revealed a highly similar pattern of results,
indicating that the effects were not driven by people endorsing the same degree of process
and outcome focus. Predicting weight loss, a hierarchical regression analysis with a
difference score of goal focus (process – outcome focus) as well as a difference score
of perceived concreteness of goal focus as predictors showed that a predominant process
focus was significantly related to weight loss ( ¼ 0.23, p ¼ 0.03) whereas perceived goal
focus concreteness was not ( ¼ 0.10, p ¼ 0.38; R
2
for step 1 ¼ 0.08, p ¼ 0.03). Including
the interaction between goal focus and concreteness in a second step ( ¼0.09, p ¼ 0.44)
did not significantly improve the prediction of weight loss (DR
2
¼ 0.01, DF ¼ 0.60,
p ¼ 0.44), nor did it reduce the association between goal focus and weight loss. The effects
of goal focus on indicators of self-regulation failure are summarized in a table in
the Appendix.
2. The average intraindividual standard deviation (ISD) and the between-person SD
were 0.90 and 1.37 for outcome focus and 0.92 and 1.14 for process focus, respectively.
The ratio between these numbers indicated that the average within-person variance
accounted for 66% of the between-person variance in outcome focus and for 80% in
process focus.
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Appendix
Table A1. Results from multilevel regression models for difference scores of goal focus (process – outcome focus): Estimates of fixed effects predicting
deviations from diet and disinhibition (N ¼ 126, maximum six assessments).
Deviations Disinhibition
Parameter Estimate (SE ) t (approximate df ) p Estimate (SE ) t (approximate df ) p
Intercept 2.26 (0.10) 22.12 (161) 50.001 2.68 (0.08) 34.56 (157) 50.001
Goal focus (higher values indicate more
dominant process focus)
Z0.12 (0.06) Z2.18 (576) 0.03 0.07 (0.04) 1.72 (568) 0.09
Process vs. outcome concreteness 0.03 (0.05) 0.60 (574) 0.55 0.02 (0.04) 0.60 (583) 0.55
Notes: The full models included two levels, namely, assessments nested within persons. Level 1 comprised assessments: Dependent variable ¼
0j
þ r
ij
.
Level 2 comprised persons:
0j
¼
00
þ
01
goal focus þ
02
process vs. outcome concreteness
ij
þ u
0j
.
18 A.M. Freund and M. Hennecke
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