Effect of goal activation on goal management

Abstract

Studies of goal management have examined how to manage multiple goals. Previous research (Finkelstein & Fishbach, 2010) showed that healthy eating made one hungrier. This study hypothesized that participants were hungrier when a health goal was not activated than when it was activated. It is expected that in such cases, goal shifting might be more likely to occur because goal progress had been perceived. Two experiments were conducted and their results were in line with this hypothesis. Participants reported being hungrier when their health goal were not activated than when these goals were activated. We consider the effect of goal activation on goal management and its implications for future research.