Goal Gradients, Expectancy, and Value

Nira Liberman, Jens Förster

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Students study harder for an exam as it gets closer, rats pull harder the closer they get to the reinforcement, people are willing to pay more to avoid a painful and scary experience the closer they get to it, and runners mobilize all their resources when closer to the goal. In this chapter we offer a closer look at goal gradients, which is the tendency to increase effort closer to a goal. This chapter looks at the function of goal gradients and analyzes their causes. We then discuss the factors that may make goal gradients steeper versus shallower and the consequences of steeper versus shallower gradients for self-regulation.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationGoal-Directed Behavior
PublisherTaylor and Francis
Pages151-173
Number of pages23
ISBN (Electronic)9781135254193
ISBN (Print)9781848728738
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2012

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