Dynamic Patterns of Personality States, Affect and Goal Pursuit Before and During an Exercise Intervention: A Series of N-of-1 Trials Combined with Ecological Momentary Assessments

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between personal goal pursuit based on a secure teacher–student relationship, mediated by personality traits. Methods and Materials: This research employed a descriptive–analytical methodology using a correlational and predictive design based on structural equation modeling (SEM). The statistical population included all students aged 9 to 12 enrolled in District 4 of Tehran during the 2023 academic year. A cluster sampling method was used, and the sample size was determined using Cochran’s formula. A total of 432 students were selected to account for potential attrition, although 400 were required. The research instruments included the Teacher–Student Relationship Scale by Murray and Zvoch (2011), the Reality Testing Scale by Bell (1995), and the short form of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory by Costa and McCrae (1992). To test the research hypothesis, statistical methods such as correlation and regression analyses were used. For model fit assessment, structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted. Data analysis was carried out using SPSS version 26 and AMOS version 24. Findings: The results indicated that a secure teacher–student relationship predicted students’ personal goal pursuit both directly and indirectly through the mediation of personality traits (conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness to experience, extraversion, and neuroticism) at the 99% significance level. The direct effect of the secure relationship on personal goal pursuit was 0.26, and the indirect effects via personality traits ranged from 0.05 to 0.08. The highest total effects were observed through neuroticism (0.33), followed by extraversion and agreeableness (0.32). These findings support the mediating role of personality traits in enhancing the impact of a secure teacher–student relationship on students' pursuit of personal goals. Conclusion: The findings suggest that a secure teacher–student relationship, mediated by personality traits, can effectively enhance students’ personal goal pursuit.

Quality of work has been frequently defined in terms of work conditions. Work conditions, described in theoretical models (as the Job Demand-Control-Social support model, the Effort-Reward Imbalance model and the Vitamin model) are presented as important predictors of wellness/health outcomes. Although empirical findings have clearly illustrated the predictive power of these models, limitations and inconsistent results support the exploration of additional, complementary perspectives. We suggest a person-centered, self-regulatory approach to quality of work life. Personal goals are presented as the core predictor of wellness and health. Within Motivational Systems theory (MST), personal goals help employees direct and organize behavior The strategies and processes involved in goal pursuit are predictive of goal attainment The opportunity to attain goals or the frustration of one’s goals is the key to health and wellness. Although there are several theoretical models and theories describing the cognitive and emotional processes involved in the pursuit of personal goals, empirical research concentrating on such phenomena at the workplace has been scarce. An overview of studies investigating the relationship between personal goals and wellness/health outcomes among employees is presented and discussed. Although most of the studies stem from different theoretical models, we focus on goal processes that are common with MST processes in an attempt to provide constructive and systematic conclusions. Goal processes were significantly predictive of wellness indicators and work-related outcomes in cross-sectional as well as longitudinal studies. More attention should however be paid on the assessment and operationalization of goals and the choice of the appropriate goal level. Personal goals and the processes involved in goal pursuit are certainly worthy of further investigation as part of sound, integrative models.KeywordsGoal OrientationGoal AttainmentPersonal GoalGoal ProcessGoal PursuitThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Purpose. In wartime, individual behavior significantly affects the health status of citizens, as the basic conditions of health are constantly under attack, and the usual way of life is under the destructive influence of various traumatic factors. Understanding the factors, conditions, and trends in promoting a healthy lifestyle (HLS) in wartime realities requires empirical research. The purpose of the article is to conduct a frequency analysis of the data from the survey “Healthy Lifestyle of Ukrainians during War” to incorporate them into the HLS promoting strategies. Methods. Data collection (end of 2023—beginning of 2024) was conducted through surveys (random and panel online samples) containing seven blocks and using Google Forms; 6042 cases were included in the analysis. Results. 1) Sociodemographic characteristics of the sample: men predominate (60%); average age – 38 years; education – mostly higher education (almost 50%) and variations of secondary (40%); professional occupation – most in the field of civil security (44,6%) and social and behavioral sciences (17,9%); geography – predominantly regions in Ukraine distant from the frontline (57,6%) and near-frontline areas (20%); family status – majority lives in families (62%), and alone – 13,2%; monthly income is predominantly low (60%) and average (31,3%); time of taking the survey due to massive missile attacks on Ukraine – mostly during attack-free days (77,5%). 2) Features of HLS: leading health preservation factors – lifestyle (99,8%) and social environment (95,5%); over 50% of respondents currently adhere to HLS; the greatest difficulties in maintaining HLS – during anxiety period, from February to May 2022 (47,7%); almost 40% of respondents understand HLS as both harmful habit cessation, existing beneficial habits adhering, and forming of new ones, while another 28,3% prioritize only harmful habits cessation; leading incentives for HLS adherence – signs of health deteriorating (38,3%), pursuit of personal goals (34.1%), awareness on the destructive impact of chronic stress (31,4%); leading barriers – lack of material resources (46,9%), unfavorable emotional state (26%), and adverse environmental conditions (24,8%); the most challenging aspects of HLS adherence – work-rest regimen (35,1%), rational nutrition (31,1%), physical activity (21,5%). 3) Leading health maintenance (care) practices: making plans, setting goals (80,4%); adhering to a regular work schedule (77%); independent search for information on overcoming psychological difficulties (68,8%); trustful communication with close surroundings (64,5%); attention to hygiene and appearance (61,4%); contributing money to volunteer fundraising (57,9%); keeping informed of news from close circles (56%) and moderate use of expert sources (49,8%); watching movies /series (53,3%) and taking walks (43,3%); prayer (37,4%); awareness on playback theatre (19,6%). 4) Digital well-being: manifested at a moderate level, digital engagement overall fosters positive communication and accompanies respondents’ pursuit of personal goals. 5) Attitudes toward uncertainty: women, those with experience of past failures, and those requiring social support are more sensitive to uncertain conditions. 6) Existential motivations: most realized ones – the ability to value moments of life, respect oneself, and orientation toward the future, yet anxiety, stress, and exhaustion are still the case. 7) Experience related to full-scale invasion: forced displacement (25%); psychological (33,4%), human (death, missing persons) (27,6%), material, financial (27%) losses; law enforcement activity (21,6%); changes in life priorities (71,2%), awareness on the ability to cope independently with life difficulties (58,5%). Conclusions. The results require further processing and will be used to develop HLS promotion strategies in various settings and population categories.

Liver transplant recipients experience comorbidities, including impaired physical fitness, which could be managed by exercise and physical activity interventions. This study aims to evaluate the feasibility, clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness...

Previous studies of achievement motivations have focused on the patterns of self-attribution with little consideration of the effects of achievement goals. In the present study, the authors investigated Taiwanese students' self-attribution for achievement goals mainly on the basis of autonomous interest (i.e., personal goals) and on social expectation (i.e., vertical goals). The authors administered self-developed scenario simulation questionnaires to undergraduate and graduate participants in 2 studies. The results showed that (a) in pursuit of personal goals, participants tended to attribute success to internal factors and failure to external factors and (b) in pursuit of vertical goals, participants tended to attribute their failure to lack of effort. The authors further discuss the theoretical implications of these findings under a cultural context.

Two studies tested the impact of manipulated and habitual emotional reappraisal and trait self-control (TSC) on personal goal pursuit (Study 1: exercise goals; Study 2: academic goals), and whether goal effort and experiences of positive and negative emotions (Study 1–2) and goal motivation (Study 2) mediated these effects. Participants (total N = 404) stated a goal they wanted to achieve over a specified timeframe. Half of the participants were assigned to a reappraisal manipulation (vs. a no-regulation control group) instructing them to develop a strategy to reframe negative emotions into positive emotions that would otherwise prevent them from achieving their goal, and to use this strategy during goal pursuit. Participants in both studies completed measures of habitual reappraisal, TSC, goal effort, emotional experiences, and goal pursuit, and participants in Study 2 also completed a measure of goal motivation. Results showed that high TSC enhanced goal pursuit, and that increased goal effort and greater goal motivation mediated this relationship. Habitual (but not manipulated) reappraisal enhanced goal pursuit through increased goal effort, greater goal motivation, and decreased negative emotions, although the latter finding did not replicate in Study 2. This research advances our understanding of the facilitating effect of TSC and habitual reappraisal on goal pursuit.

The role of implicit motivation in hot and cold goal pursuit: Effects on goal progress, goal rumination, and emotional well-being

The traditional view of goal is that goals are set and pursued in a deliberate and controlled way, yet in the last two decades, researchers have focused on the implicit cognitive process involved in personal goal pursuit. This article presents contemporary work on this topic and shows a holistic picture of the relationship between implicit cognition and goal pursuit. Research shows that implicit cognition plays a critical role in the process of goal pursuit including the initial activation, the action during, and the eventual outcome. The manner in which implicit cognition influences goal pursuit is interactive and creates either a positive or negative feedback loop. Factors include the implicit need of achievements, implicit evaluation of goal-relevant experience and implicit thoughts promoted by the goal all contribute to the feedback loop. Certain components of implicit cognition are also predictive of goal attainment, such as the implicit importance of means towards achievement. The enriched existing data and findings on the topic offer valuable insights and lay a solid foundation for future research.

Pursuing personal goals that are relevant to one's sense of self is important for adjusting to age-related changes. Experiences of physical pain, however, are thought to threaten both people's sense of self and their pursuit of personal goals. Although a majority of older women experience physical pain, little is known about their day-to-day regulation of their self-relevant goals in the presence of physical pain. The objectives of this study were to explore associations between physical pain and health goal pursuit on a daily basis for women who identified health as a part of their possible selves. We took an intraindividual variability approach to analyze whether there were within- and between-person differences in associations between daily pain and daily health goal progress among 62 women who provided data over the course of 100 days, yielding 4,150 occasions of data. At the between-person level, women with higher pain on average had lower health goal pursuit on average. At the within-person level, days of higher-than-average pain were associated with lower same-day health goal progress. Our results suggest that pain interrupts regulation of a self-relevant goal at a within-person-not just between-person-daily level. Future work should consider how these daily, within-person, disruptions affect broader identity processes and overall well-being.

Objective: Theory and research suggest that the pursuit of personal goals that do not fit a person's affect-based implicit motives results in impaired emotional well-being, including increased symptoms of depression. The aim of this study was to evaluate an intervention designed to enhance motive-goal congruence and study its impact on well-being.Method: Seventy-four German students (mean age = 22.91, SD = 3.68; 64.9% female) without current psychopathology, randomly allocated to three groups: motivational feedback (FB; n = 25; participants learned about the fit between their implicit motives and explicit goals), FB + congruence-enhancement training (CET; n = 22; participants also engaged in exercises to increase the fit between their implicit motives and goals), and a no-intervention control group (n = 27), were administered measures of implicit motives, personal goal commitments, happiness, depressive symptoms, and life satisfaction 3 weeks before (T1) and 6 weeks after (T2) treatment.Results: On two types of congruence measures derived from motive and goal assessments, treated participants showed increases in agentic (power and achievement) congruence, with improvements being most consistent in the FB+CET group. Treated participants also showed a trend-level depressive symptom reduction, but no changes on other well-being measures. Although increases in overall and agentic motivational congruence were associated with increases in affective well-being, treatment-based reduction of depressive symptoms was not mediated by treatment-based agentic congruence changes.Conclusion: These findings document that motivational congruence can be effectively enhanced, that changes in motivational congruence are associated with changes in affective well-being, and they suggest that individuals' implicit motives should be considered when personal goals are discussed in the therapeutic process.

Introduction: Symptoms of depression are associated with difficulty achieving personal goals. Empirical investigations suggest that depressed individuals do not differ from healthy controls in their commitment to personal goals (i.e., goal commitment), though they express less confidence in their abilities to achieve goals (i.e., goal-related confidence). Despite the relevance of motivational constructs, including goal commitment and confidence, to both depression and goal striving, there is a dearth of research examining these variables as they relate to depressive symptoms and goal progress across time.Method: To address this gap, we tracked the goal pursuits of 139 undergraduate participants oversampled for elevated symptoms of depression at a large, Midwestern university at three time-points. Participants completed a baseline assessment that included The Center for Epidemiologic Studies—Depression Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977) and a free-response goal-setting activity. They were asked to report goal progress and re-rate commitment and confidence for any not-yet-attained goals 2 weeks later and, finally, to report on goal attainment at a 2-month follow-up.Results: As predicted, the association between depressive symptoms and concurrently-reported goal commitment was not significant. However, less goal progress and early decreases in goal commitment and confidence reported at 2-week follow-up acted as indirect paths through which baseline depressive symptoms predicted poor longer-term goal outcomes.Discussion: Future investigators could experimentally test the associations between these variables to better understand the ways in which manipulating one aspect of goal striving might causally influence the others.

Goal pursuit may involve setbacks likely to elicit negative emotions. To continue pursuing the goal, an individual may need to regulate those emotions. In this study, we compared the unique contributions of two emotion regulation styles, integrative emotion regulation (IER) and suppressive emotion regulation (SER), to goal pursuit processes. We tested the hypotheses that IER and SER would be differentially related to goal progress and goal-related effort and goal-related depressed mood would mediate those relations. 255 Israeli participants completed five web questionnaires at two-week intervals. We examined the mediation hypothesis using multilevel structural equation modeling. At the within-person level, increases in IER predicted increases in goal progress at a given time point through increases in goal-related effort, while increases in SER predicted decreases in goal progress through increases in goal-related depressed mood. At the between-persons level, participants with higher IER reported more goal progress; this effect was mediated by goal-related effort. Participants with higher SER reported lower goal progress; this effect was mediated by higher goal-related depressed mood. The findings held after controlling for such factors as participants' perceived goal competence, goal stress, sex, and age. IER promotes goal pursuit, but SER impedes it.

Congruency theory predicts that sociotropic and autonomous individuals may experience negative life events differently, focusing primarily on the social and achievement themes of events, respectively. The present study investigated this hypothesis in 175 undergraduate students, who completed measures of sociotropy and autonomy, depressive symptoms, and life event self-worth impact appraisals. Both negative interpersonal and personal failure-related events were related to participants' senses of self-worth in the social and achievement domains, supporting a continuous model of life event classification. Sociotropy and specific autonomy subfactors showed differential associations with self-worth impact ratings. Recommendations for future research, psychological assessment, and treatment of depressive responses to negative life events in sociotropic and autonomous individuals are discussed. Keywords: sociotropy; autonomy; dysphoria; life events Beck's (1983; Clark, Beck, & Alford, 1999) and Blatt's (Blatt, D'Afflitti, & Quinlan, 1976; Blatt & Zuroff, 1992; Zuroff, Mongrain, & Santor, 2004) diathesis-stress congruency models of depression predict that an individual's personality orientation and negative life experiences interact to determine depressive vulnerability. Sociotropy-dependency refers to the degree to which an individual is concerned with how he or she is perceived by others, is dependent upon others for psychological support and well-being, and is motivated to obtain others' acceptance and approval. In contrast, autonomy encompasses the extent to which an individual is motivated by an arduous set of personalized criteria for measuring level of achievement, and is intolerant of frustration or interference in the pursuit of personal goals. Recent evidence suggests, however, that the perfectionistic and self-critical, need for control, and socially defensive components of the autonomy personality construct may be distinctive enough to warrant their consideration as unique dimensions of personality-vulnerability (e.g., Frewen & Dozois, in press). Congruency theory holds that sociotropic individuals are at increased risk for depression, relative to nonsociotropic individuals, following the experience of negative social events such as loss or rejection. In contrast, autonomous individuals are predicted to be more vulnerable to depression, relative to individuals with a less autonomous orientation, following the experience of failure. However, as long as sociotropic and autonomous individuals perceive that their personality-relevant needs are met, they should not readily succumb to depression. In this sense, congruency theory is consistent with Kuiper's self-worth contingency model of depression (Kuiper & Olinger, 1986a, 1986b; Kuiper, Olinger, & MacDonald, 1988; Olinger, Kuiper, & Shaw, 1987). Kuiper and his colleagues articulated a cognitive vulnerability model of depression in which an individual implicitly evaluates his or her self-worth in an overtly contractual fashion (if-then contingencies; e.g., "Only if others admire me, then I am a good person"). Applying this theory to personality vulnerability, sociotropic individuals should be fairly content with their lives to the extent that they receive friendship and affection. Given that their self-worth is conditional, however, sociotropic individuals would be vulnerable to feelings of worthlessness and depressive affect in the context of rejection from others. Individuals with a high tendency toward autonomous perfectionism and self-criticism would likewise only be vulnerable to depression when they experience failure, and not when they perceive themselves as adequately achieving their personal goals. Research has supported the relationship between sociotropy and autonomy and the experience of depression (Neitzel & Harris, 1990), although several studies have failed to confirm the specific predictions of the congruency hypothesis that personality dimensions should interact only with matching negative events in the prediction of depressive symptoms (Coyne & Whiffen, 1995). …

This study examined health-related hindrance (HRH) of personal goals among adolescents receiving treatment for cancer and healthy peers. Adolescents and parents completed measures of demographics and psychosocial variables. Adolescents reported on their HRH, measured by ratings of the impact of pain, fatigue, other physical symptoms, and doing things to manage their health on self-identified personal goals. Disease-related information was abstracted from patient charts. Adolescents with cancer experienced significantly more HRH than healthy peers, and their HRH was significantly associated with poorer health-related quality of life (p < 0.001), negative affect (p = 0.03), and depressive symptoms (p = 0.03). Risk and resilience factors associated with HRH for those with cancer included pain (current and past month severity, frequency, and pain-related quality of life), fatigue, nausea, cognitive problems, worse parent-reported family functioning, and female gender. When testing these significant associates in a regression model predicting HRH among adolescents with cancer, those with more severe pain (p < 0.001) and worse parent-reported family functioning (p = 0.01) were significantly associated with HRH; fatigue was marginally (p = 0.09) significant. Results suggest that HRH is a significant problem for adolescents with cancer, particularly those who are experiencing pain. Addressing pain and other symptom management, enhancing family functioning, and helping adolescents adjust their goals or enhance support for goal pursuit may reduce HRH among adolescents with cancer. This may improve psychosocial well-being, address adolescent unmet needs, and ultimately help adolescents with cancer maintain normal developmental trajectories.

Close others often serve as a source of support for our pursuit of personal goals. Although social psychological research indicates that individuals and relationships benefit when couple members provide each other with secure base support for personal goals, few studies have investigated the physiological bases of these types of support interactions. This study of married older adults examined support providers' cardiovascular challenge‐threat responses while they engaged in a laboratory social interaction about the most important goal that their partner (the target) wanted to make progress toward during the next year. Consistent with our hypothesis, support providers' cardiovascular challenge responses were positively associated with targets' ratings of their secure base support provision during the discussion. This study also used structural equation modeling to test a theoretical model of support providers' cardiovascular challenge responses as a physiological basis of secure base support provision that promotes targets' goal progress and thriving over time. Consistent with our theory, support providers' cardiovascular challenge responses were positively associated with targets' goal progress at Year 2 follow‐up. In turn, targets' goal progress at Year 2 predicted increases in targets' overall thriving from Year 1 to Year 3. This investigation provides novel evidence for attachment theory's assertion that biobehavioral caregiving system activation facilitates the provision of secure base support that promotes close others' goal progress and thriving over time. Results of this study also contribute to recent evidence that cardiovascular challenge responses are associated with social behaviors during dyadic interactions.