| Extant research in goal literature has ignored maintenance (versus attainment) goals in which the current state coincides with, or exceeds (versus lags) the desired state. In a series of five studies, in which we use both student and actual gym user samples, we measured and manipulated both goal types. We establish that the two goal types differ in goal characteristics, psychological processes, and goal pursuit behaviors. Thus, goal-directed consumers should not be treated as a homogeneous group. First, maintenance goals make consumers consider and use fewer number of goal fulfilling strategies because maintenance goals trigger consumers to consider both process and outcomes of strategies whereas attainment goals trigger consumers to focus more on outcomes. Second, maintenance goals make consumers prefer to implement strategies that are temporally dispersed - effortfully less intense (versus temporally concentrated - effortfully more intense). This difference in preference for strategy is because attainment goals lead consumers to hold the instrumentality bias which is a naive belief that more intense effort will lead to a better reward. Third, regarding obstacles to goal pursuit, stability in life circumstances prompts maintenance goal consumers to underestimate the goal difficulty and exhibit lower goal adherence than attainment goal consumers. In contrast, the two groups did not differ in their goal adherence when there are many changes in life circumstances. These findings contribute to the research in goal literature, help marketing practitioners and public policy makers recognize that goal-directed consumers can be segmented by goal type, and promote success in goal pursuit. |
