The Stronger By Science Podcast Goal Setting and Behavior Change
Reasons to Wait
- New Year's resolutions are often health or finance-related.
- Waiting until the new year to start may be practical, considering holidays and existing habits.
Fresh Start Effect
- Temporal landmarks like New Year's create a 'fresh start effect'.
- This separation from past selves can boost enthusiasm and self-efficacy for future goals.
Goal Hierarchy
- Don't just set one SMART goal, establish a goal hierarchy.
- Include superordinate (values), intermediate (directions), and subordinate (actions) goals.
In preparation for the new year (and the resolutions that come with it), today’s episode is all about goal setting and behavior change. Eric and Greg have a long, evidence-based conversation about the research on setting effective goals and successfully changing health behaviors. The discussion yields several evidence-based tips for setting better goals and maximally supporting your ability to achieve them.
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TIME STAMPS
Intro/Announcements (0:00)
Road to the Stage / Road to Athens (2:29)
Feats of Strength (4:12)
Research Review: Goal setting and behavior change (9:54)
Fake urgency (12:06)
Success rates of New Year’s Resolutions (14:36)
- Auld lang syne: success predictors, change processes, and self-reported outcomes of New Year's resolvers and nonresolvers
- A large-scale experiment on New Year's resolutions: Approach-oriented goals are more successful than avoidance-oriented goals
Temporal landmarks (22:19)
- The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior
- Anticipated Temporal Landmarks Undermine Motivation for Continued Goal Pursuit
SMART goals (27:31)
Creating a goal hierarchy (30:19)
Superordinate goals (34:16)
Equifinality and Multifinality (41:12)
Mental contrasting (44:12)
- Mental contrasting for health behaviour change: a systematic review and meta-analysis of effects and moderator variables
- A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Mental Contrasting With Implementation Intentions on Goal Attainment
Approach versus avoidance (52:37)
Flexible versus rigid restraint (56:16)
Process versus outcome (1:01:28)
Mastery versus performance (1:06:05)
Goal difficulty; “slack with a cost” (1:13:44)
- Goal Setting and Action Planning for Health Behavior Change
- The Benefits of Emergency Reserves: Greater Preference and Persistence for Goals that Have Slack with a Cost
Setting specific goals (1:23:12)
Implementation intentions (1:23:47)
- A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Mental Contrasting With Implementation Intentions on Goal Attainment
- Holding the Hunger Games Hostage at the Gym: An Evaluation of Temptation Bundling
Stimulus control; modifying your environment (1:30:24)
Social support and feedback (1:33:08)
- Periodic Prompts and Reminders in Health Promotion and Health Behavior Interventions: Systematic Review
- Designing in-app messages to nudge behavior change: Lessons learned from a weight management app for young adults
How MacroFactor supports evidence-based goal striving and behavior change (1:45:06)
To Play Us Out: Protein Bread, Winter Break (1:54:54)
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