Some of the material in is restricted to members of the community. By logging in, you may be able to gain additional access to certain collections or items. If you have questions about access or logging in, please use the form on the Contact Page.
Evidence of an automatic tendency to think about and attend to one's unfulfilled goals led us to examine whether unfulfilled goals can distract from other, unrelated pursuits. In three studies, we manipulated goal frustration or goal failure in an initial task and then measured pursuit of an ostensibly unrelated goal during a second task. A goal to achieve, when frustrated, interfered with the unrelated goal to diet (Study 1). Failure to fulfill an honesty goal led to decrements in intellectual performance (Study 2). Furthermore, results from Study 2 suggest that unfulfilled goals remain active through later tasks and that this activation causes decrements in task performance. While goal frustration interfered with other pursuits, fulfilling a goal after an initial period of frustration eliminated this interference effect (Study 3). These studies show that the ability to pursue a goal may be hampered when one's prior goals have been left unfulfilled.
A Thesis submitted to the Department of Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science.
Bibliography Note
Includes bibliographical references.
Advisory Committee
Roy F. Baumeister, Professor Directing Thesis; Michael P. Kaschak, Committee Member; Jon K. Maner, Committee Member.
Publisher
Florida State University
Identifier
FSU_migr_etd-2680
Use and Reproduction
This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them.
