The Endowed Progress Effect: How Artificial Advancement Increases Effort

Joseph C. Nunes and Xavier Drze

Journal of Consumer Research, 2006, vol. 32, issue 4, 504-512

Abstract: This research documents a phenomenon we call the endowed progress effect, whereby people provided with artificial advancement toward a goal exhibit greater persistence toward reaching the goal. By converting a task requiring eight steps into a task requiring 10 steps but with two steps already complete, the task is reframed as one that has been undertaken and incomplete rather than not yet begun. This increases the likelihood of task completion and decreases completion time. The effect appears to depend on perceptions of task completion rather than a desire to avoid wasting the endowed progress. Moderators include the reason, if any, offered for the endowment and the currency in which progress is recorded. (c) 2006 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/500480 link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:v:32:y:2006:i:4:p:504-512

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 ().