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Category: Project

Description: Revising one’s goal in response to feedback about goal success or failure is a central but poorly understood self-regulatory process. Specifically, a theoretical model that specifies how and how much people revise their goal following goal success or failure is lacking. Therefore, we synthesized empirical studies on goal revision to shed light on the processes and individual differences in goal revision. Twenty-eight studies met the inclusion criteria and revealed a clear pattern: People raise their goals after success and lower them after failure. Results of a meta-analysis further showed that the discrepancy between goal and performance predicted the strength of upward goal revision after success and downward goal revision after failure (r = .51). Moreover, a narrative summary of previously tested moderators revealed two ways in which moderators affect the direction and strength of goal revision. Moderators affect either the direct link between goal-performance discrepancy and goal revision, or the link between goal-performance discrepancy and self-efficacy. Self-efficacy emerged as a central mediating variable between goal-performance discrepancy and goal revision. Based on these findings, we developed the Triple-A Model (Assessment, Appraisal, Adjustment) of Goal Revision, which allows deriving directional hypotheses about how much people revise their goals after successes and failures.