The Effect of Goal Specificity on Consumer Goal Reengagement

Maura L. Scott and Stephen M. Nowlis

Journal of Consumer Research, 2013, vol. 40, issue 3, 444 - 459

Abstract: Consumers often need to decide if they want to reengage a goal, such as a goal of losing weight, a goal of saving money, or a goal of performing well on a video game. This research finds that consumers are more likely to reengage a goal when they have set a high-low range goal (e.g., lose 2-4 pounds this week) than when they have set a single number goal (e.g., lose 3 pounds this week). This effect is driven by the greater attainability and greater challenge of the high-low range goal, which then leads to a greater feeling of accomplishment. Thus, these findings suggest that in order to keep a consumer motivated over time to continue with an activity or continue using a product, that consumer should first set or be given a high-low range goal.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/670766 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/670766 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jconrs:doi:10.1086/670766

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Consumer Research is currently edited by Bernd Schmitt, June Cotte, Markus Giesler, Andrew Stephen and Stacy Wood

More articles in Journal of Consumer Research from Journal of Consumer Research Inc.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().