A goal-affect analysis of everyday situational choices

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN PERSONALITY 20, 309-326 (1986)

A Goal-Affect Analysis of Everyday Situational Choices

ROBERT A. EMMONS AND ED DIENER

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The purpose of the present study was to explore several of the processes accounting for situational choices. Subjects kept daily records of their moods and the situations they encountered over a 30-day period. They rated the importance of 17 goals in each situation and estimated how often they actually attained each goal. The frequencies of satisfying and frustrating outcomes were also rated. It was found that goal importance and goal attainment were the best predictors of time spent in situations, followed by positive affect felt in the situation, and next by the satisfied outcome ratings. These relationships were generally stronger in chosen as opposed to imposed situations. Some situations were chosen on the basis of affect (recreation-leisure), while other situations (work-study) were chosen despite their affective consequences. It was concluded that situational choices are predicted by different variables for different situations and for different persons. The relevance of various current motivational theories for the present tindings is discussed. Other possible influences on situational choices are suggested. 0 1986 Academic Press. Inc.

Personologists since the time of Allport have defended the notion that individuals actively seek out certain situations and avoid others on the basis of their underlying dispositions. The importance of studying situational choices has been pointed out by a number of noted psychologists from differing theoretical perspectives, including Bandura (1982), Mischel (1977), Snyder (1983), Tyler (1983), and Wachtel(l973). Snyder (1981, 1983) has cogently argued that any understanding of social behavior is dependent upon the processes by which individuals find themselves in social contexts in the first place, contexts which are largely of their own choice and creation. However, empirical research on the choosing of situations is still in an embryonic stage, although it has shown a healthy increasing

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 92nd annual convention of the American Psychological Association, Toronto, 1984. We are grateful to Eric Klinger, Bob Wyer, Ellen Taylor, Lawrence A. Pervin, Ed Sandvik, and three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments which helped to improve the quality of this paper. We also thank Laurie Emmons and Randy Larsen for their valuable help in data collection and analysis. Last, we express our sincere gratitude to the 21 individuals who made this study possible by serving as participants. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Robert A. Emmons. Present address: Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, Psychology Research Building, East Lansing, MI 48824.

309 OO92-6566/86 $3.00

Copyright D 1986 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

310 EMMONS AND DIENER

trend in recent years (Diener, Larsen, & Emmons, 1984; Emmons, Diener, & Larsen, in press; Furnham, 1981, 1982; Snyder, 1981, 1983). Although much research has now been carried out demonstrating that people do choose situations in accordance with their personality, little attention has been directed at trying to explain the reasons for such choices. The majority of previous research has correlated personality trait scores with preferences for various types of situations, often including situations which are not representative of those encountered by the subjects in everyday settings.

The present research was undertaken to remedy the two shortcomings above, namely (1) to understand some of the processes governing situational choice and (2) to make the design as representative as possible in terms of situations sampled (Pervin, 1977). Previous efforts have suggested two potential avenues for inquiry into why people select certain situations. First, several attempts have been made to understand the goal structure of situations (Fuller, 1950; Lewin, 1935; Stebbins, 1969). However, these approaches have focused on goals as properties of situations rather than of individuals. Pervin (1983) has undertaken a research program inves- tigating the relations between situations, goals, and affect. One of his main findings was that the affective tone of a situation was not related to the mere number of goals present in the situation, but rather to the affective quality of relevant goals plus the potential for their fulfillment. He recommended that future research explore the relationship of goal relevance, affective value, and the probability of achievement to how situations are selected and experienced by the person. Graham, Argyle, and Furnham (1980) proposed that situations have clear goal structures- they exist for the purpose of, and provide the means for, attaining certain interpersonal goals and satisfying certain intrapersonal motives.

The above analysis leads to the hypothesis that individuals seek out certain situations that allow them to attain certain goals, which in turn satisfy certain motives. Situational choice, then, can be at least partly understood in terms of a goal-based motivational analysis, in which a goal is defined as some endpoint (or an intermediate point for a larger goal) an individual is trying to achieve.

Another possible influence on situational choice has its origins in a hedonic motivational theory which emphasizes the role of affect (Cofer, 1981). Individuals may choose situations which are associated with positive affect and avoid situations which are associated with negative affect. Pervin (1977) suggests that individuals may classify situations according to the emotions elicited by the situation, and it seems plausible that a future decision to enter a given situation may be on the basis of emotions elicited in the past in the same or similar situations. Sjoberg (1981) suggested that people may strive less for the satisfaction of motives (goal attainment) than they strive to avoid unpleasant situations and events.

SITUATIONAL CHOICES 311

There is also evidence to indicate that atfect is tied to goals. Pervin (1983) notes that affect is central to motivation and goal-directed behavior. Three recent theoretical formulations stress the interrelatedness between goals and affect. Chekola (1974) has introduced the concept of “life- plans,” which consist of the important goals and desires of a person. The process of realizing the life plan, according to Chekola, is the primary cause of happiness. In Klinger’s (1977) theory, affect underlies incentive value, which determines commitment to goals. Affect also plays a role in assessing progress toward the goal. Little (1983) has developed the concept of personal projects, which are defined as an interrelated sequence of actions intended to achieve some personal goal. Palys and Little (1983) found that individuals who were involved in short-term important projects which were highly enjoyable and of moderate difficulty were happy with their lives. Based on a goal-affect analysis, we would expect positive affect to be associated with goal attainment, and negative affect to be associated with goal frustration.

There are three primary hypotheses being tested in the present study. The first is that individuals will spend more time in situations in which they have important goals and believe they are making progress toward these goals. These relationships should be stronger when an individual chooses to be in the situation versus having that situation imposed on them. The second is that individuals will tend to choose situations in which they typically feel positive affect and avoid situations in which they typically feel negative affect. The third hypothesis, which follows from the first two, is that individuals will feel more positive affect and less negative affect in situations in which they have important goals and believe they are making progress toward these goals. Thus, the present investigation is aimed at examining the extent to which affect and goals underlie situational choices. Regarding the relationship between affect and goals, we assume a position similar to that of Klinger, Barta, and Maxeiner (1980). That is, affect serves as feedback indicating that either progress toward goals is being made or that important goals have been attained. Another purpose of the present research is more exploratory: to examine time spent in specific types of situations (social, work/study, recreation) as a function of affect and goals. It may be that situations differ in the factors that influence their selection. More specifically, there may be broad classes of situations that are selected based mainly on certain factors (such as anticipated affect) and other classes of situations which are selected for different reasons (such as goal importance or future goal attainment). For example, affect might be weighted more in recreational choices, whereas goal importance might be important in selecting work situations. Thus, in the present study we examined the choice predictors within broad predefined situational classes such as work versus recreation. The objective was to determine whether situational


choices are motivated by different underlying factors, and therefore there are no universal determinants of situational choice. Finally, in the present study we compared the predictors of situational choice across persons in order to determine whether situational choices are based on the same variables for different individuals.

The present study included multiple measures of goals and self-reports of affect in varied circumstances over a period of 30 days. A time- sampling methodology was used, variations of which we have used in the past to address issues of situation selection (Diener et al., 1984; Emmons et al., in press), congruence models of interactionism (Diener et al., 1984; Emmons et al., in press), personality-emotion relationships (Emmons & Diener, 1986), cross-situational consistency of affect (Diener & Larsen, 1984), and the relationship between positive and negative affect (Diener & Emmons, 1984). The time-sampling methodology rep- resents a powerful approach to the study of naturally occurring goal- directed action, and thus is the methodology of choice in the present study.

METHOD The study was conducted in three phases. In Phase 1, participants generated a list of

20 specific situations from their current lives and classified them into broad situational categories. In Phase 2, participants kept daily records of their moods in the situations they encountered for 30 consecutive days. The third phase consisted of goal ratings in which participants rated the importance of a number of general goals in each of their 20 situations, and also rated how often they actually attained each goal in each situation. In this third phase, participants also were asked to indicate what outcomes they found particularly satisfying and frustrating in each situation, and to rate what percentage of time these outcomes actually occurred. Thus, we had a measure of the important situations in each person’s life, along with a report of the degree to which they achieved their goals in each of these situations. In addition, we had measures of their affect in the situations and time spent in each situation which were generated from time sampling over the period of a month.

Participants Participants were 21 (18 females, 3 males) University of Illinois undergraduates participating

in a semester long research and course project entitled “The Relationship of Situations to Affect.” They were recruited through an announcement posted in the psychology department describing an independent study opportunity. There was virtually no constraint on who could enroll. Enrollment in the course reflected varying motivations, ranging from the desire to learn about oneself to the absence of traditional homework and grading procedures. Subjects received 3 h of credit for their participation.

Procedure Phase 1: Situations. In Phase 1, each subject generated a list of 20 representative

situations from their current lives. Subjects were instructed to include only situations which typically last at least 15 min. Situations were defined in terms of who was there, when and where it was taking place, and what was happening, and were thus defined in the same manner as by Pervin (1981, 1983). Subjects were told that a situation was a


recurrent thing in their lives that included a who, a what, and a where. They were told that differing situations partitioned their day into separate parts. These recurring situations individually defined by each subject were then used in Phases 2 and 3 to examine choice, goals, and affect. Subjects also indicated into which of four situational categories (social, alone, work, recreation) each of their 20 situations most clearly belonged. Subjects could check more than one category for each situation; however, work and recreation situations were mutually exclusive, as were social and alone situations. The usefulness of classifying situations in this manner has been demonstrated in our other work (Diener et al., 1984; Emmons et al., in press; Emmons, Diener, & Larsen, in press).

Phase 2: Mood report. In Phase 2, subjects completed a mood report daily for 30 consecutive days. On the form subjects indicated the extent to which they felt a number of different emotions in up to 5 situations per day. Only those situations which appeared on each individual’s list of 20 (generated in Phase 1) could be included and rated in Phase 2. If they encountered less than 5 of the 20 situations on a given day, they were to rate only those situations encountered. The mood terms consisted of 12 monopolar affect adjective scales. Based on earlier factor analytic work (Diener & Emmons, 1984), four adjectives were used to provide a composite positive affect score: happy, joyful, pleased, and enjoyment/fun; and four adjectives were used to provide a composite negative affect score: unhappy, depressed/blue, frustrated, and angry/hostile. We have employed these composite affect scales in other studies (Diener & Emmons, 1984; Diener et al., 1984) and both their internal consistency and temporal stability coefficients approach 90. Subjects indicated the extent to which they felt each of the eight types of affect in each situation on a 7-point scale, where 1 = not at all and 7 = extremely much. The duration of each situation was also recorded, on a 4-point scale, where 1 = 15 min to f h, 2 = 4-1 h, 3 = l-2 h, and 4 = over 2 h. Subjects also indicated whether they perceived they had freely chosen the situation or it had been imposed on them. This rating was made on a 9-point, bipolar scale where 1 = chosen and 9 = imposed. For the analyses to be reported, situations rated 4 or less were classified as chosen, while situations rated 6 or higher were classified as imposed. The rationale behind including both chosen and imposed situations was that it was believed that examining relationships within imposed situations may also shed light on affect-goal processes underlying chosen situations. The remaining affect scales are not germane to this study and are not discussed.

It was difficult to decide on what criteria should be used for the inclusion of the 5 situations on each subject’s daily report. It was debated as to whether, for example, the first 5, the most salient 5, or the 5 in which the strongest emotions were felt should be included. It was decided that the 5 situations of the longest duration for each subject for each day should be the ones recorded. It was believed that this was the most objective criterion and would introduce the least bias into the results. If the same situation was encountered more than once in the same day, subjects based their rating on the one of longest duration. Subjects were instructed to complete part of the form in the afternoon and the remainder of it at the end of each day just before going to sleep. The rationale behind this was that it was not believed that subjects could accurately recall the differential moods felt in each of 5 different situations if they had waited until the end of the day to complete the form. Because the participants had become familiar with their 20 situations, they had an idea of which situations they would be encountering later that evening when they were making their afternoon rating. Each participant was required to turn in the previous day’s form the following day in order to ensure daily completion. A total of 2933 situation ratings were obtained, 2052 (70%) of which the situation was indicated as being chosen. This value is similar to the percentage of activities that Csikszentmihalyi and Graef (1981) found people rated as voluntary.

To summarize, the daily ratings provided in Phase 2 were used to obtain (1) the amount of time spent in chosen and imposed situations and (2) the amount of positive and negative affect felt in these situations.


Phase 3: Goal assessment. Following the daily record portion of the study, in Phase 3, subjects rated the importance of 17 different goals in each of their 20 situations. The list of goals was taken from Graham et al. (1980), who started with a much larger list of 120 specific goals, and through factor analysis reduced them to the 17 more general goals. These goals are shown in Table 3. Thus, although the situations were unique to each individual, the goals used as predictors were common across all subjects and were based upon goals that many students have. The importance rating was made on a 5-point scale, where 1 = not at all important, 2 = somewhat important, 3 = moderately important, 4 = very important, and 5 = extremely important. In order to estimate the reliability of the goal ratings, subjects repeated the importance ratings 1 month later. The average of the reliability coefficients obtained was .82, indicating that subjects reliably thought certain goals were gained in certain situations. The initial importance ratings of all goals taken together in each situation were used to predict situational choices. Subjects also estimated how often they actually attained each goal in each situation on a ‘I-point scale, where the anchors were labeled almost never achieved or attained to almost always achieved or attained. Once again, the average across all 17 goals for each situation represented the extent to which a person achieved their goals in that situation.

Finally, subjects rated the relevance of the 17 goals to 20 common situations. These 20 situations were taken from the individual lists, and were those which appeared most often on these lists. This rating was made on a S-point scale where the respective anchors were labeled not at all relevant and extremely relevant. For example, subjects rated the relevance of the goal “seek information or advice” in the situation “talk to parents on phone.” These relevance ratings served as input to the factor analysis of the 17 goals described below. The basic aim was to obtain factors that represented broad classes of goals in order to also check on the possibility that certain classes of goals are better predictors of situational choice than others.

An additional measure of goal attainment was also utilized, in order to provide multiple converging measurements of goal attainment in situations. A strategy proposed by Argyle (1980) was employed. Subjects were asked what outcome would make them completely satisfied with each of their situations, and what outcome would make them completely frustrated. Then subjects estimated the percentage of time that these outcomes actually occurred in each of their 20 situations. This task was also undertaken following completion of the daily study, so that by this time subjects had become quite familiar with each of their situations. Following completion of the project, a meeting was held in which participants were informed as to the objectives and hypotheses of the study.

RESULTS

Table 1 shows the intercorrelations of the variables which are used to predict situational choice. The correlations in the table are intraindividual, since the interest here is in relationships that exist among variables within individuals. The correlations were calculated by converting each subject’s scores on each variable to standard scores around the individual’s mean, so that each individual had a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1 on each variable. This has the effect of partialling out individual differences in means and variances. These intraindividual correlations were then computed on the data pooled across subjects, in the manner specified by Klinger et al. (1980). Thus, these correlations are based on a total of 336 situation ratings. Both affect and goal information were used to predict situational choice. In terms of affect, both positive and negative


TABLE 1 INTERCORRELATIONS OF VARIABLES

PA NA SAT FRU IMP

PA NA SAT FRU IMP ATT Ax1

- .53 .29 -.12

- .28 .12 - .75 .47 -.18 .31 - .27 .46 -.19 .33 - .31 .77 .43 -.16 .33 - .30 -

Note. N = 336 situations. All correlations are significant. PA = positive affect. NA = negative affect. IMP = summed importance. ATT = summed attainment. A x I = summed attainment weighted by importance. SAT = satisfied ratings. FRU = frustrated ratings.

affect were employed as predictors because the two are major types of affect and are relatively independent (Diener & Emmons, 1984). In terms of goals, both goal importance and goal attainment, as well as the mul- tiplicative combination of the two, were used to predict situational choice. Following the lead of Argyle (1980), we also used satisfaction and frustration ratings to index goal attainment. First, it can be noted that positive and negative affect vary inversely when within-subject data are analyzed by days, a finding that replicates the results of Diener and Emmons (1984). It was hypothesized that individuals would feel greater positive affect and less negative affect if they were achieving important goals. This hypothesis was supported by the data, although the correlations between positive affect and the goal variables are stronger than those between negative affect and the latter (.47 and .46 vs - .18 and - .19, t = 2.83, p < .05). The standard deviations of the affect and goal variables were sufficiently high such that restriction of range could not have accounted for these results. Lack of goal attainment does not appear to increase a person’s negative affect as much as reaching goals influences positive affect; perhaps when thwarted, people formulate alternate plans or re- evaluate their position relative to their goals, after engaging in an outcome expectancy assessment (Scheier & Carver, 1981).

An interesting finding is that positive affect is just as strongly related to having important goals as it is to the attainment of these goals. Having important goals and making progress toward them by being in the right situation may be as critical as the actual attainment of the goal (Diener, 1984). It should be noted that goal importance was highly correlated with goal attainment (r = .77). This indicates that people are more likely to attain those goals that they consider important, most probably via increased commitment and effort (Klinger, 1977).

The data were then analyzed individually, subject by subject. The analysis consisted of correlating time spent in each situation with average


positive and negative affect felt in that situation, the satisfying and frustrating outcome ratings for that situation, and the summed importance, attainment, and importance x attainment of the 17 common goals in the situation. The goal values were derived from averaging across the 17 goals in each situation. In contrast to the correlations presented in Table 1, which were based on data transformed to unit normal form, these individual subject correlations were not based on transformed data. The correlations were computed across all situations for each subject. Thus, each person’s data is based on a sample of approximately 20 situations. Time spent in each situation was computed by taking the number of times in the situation (which could have ranged from 0 to 30 (1 time a day for 30 days)) and multiplying it by the average duration of that situation. These correlations are presented in Table 2. All values in the table refer to the correlation between the variable in that column and amount of time spent correlated across each subject’s 20 situations. For example, the values in the column under the heading PA refer to the correlation between the average positive affect felt in particular situations

TABLE 2 CORRELATIONS BETWEEN GOAL IMUIPORTANCE, GOAL ATTAINMENT, AFFECT, AND TIME SPENT

IN SITUATIONS

Subject PA NA IMP ATT A x I SAT FRU Mult. R

AW BA BB BE (Ml BO BU CM) DE FI IN JE MI MJ OL OR SA SN SP su TS YA 04 YE Average

-.13 .28 .18 .28 .lO .40 .18 - .62 .60 .60 - .28 .35 .35 - .38 .20

- .57 .27 -.13 - .39 .37 .66 - .21 .38 .17

.28 - .35 .80

.54 -.ll .22 -.lO .20 .22

.31 -.15 .13

.35 -.26 .61

.28 -.08 .21

.12 -.21 .41

.65 -.lO .32

.39 -.28 .28

.56 - .32 .35

.48 - .09 s9 - .36 .55 .36

.54 -.31 .46

.2t3* - .07 .40*

.39 .30 .13 -.17 .50

.66 .55 - .21 .59 .73

.66 .58 .15 -.12 .79

.32 .32 -.lO .08 .74

.40 .33 .57 -.25 .62

.44 .26 -.17 .47 .64 .54 .59 .22 - .55 .67 .05 .14 .44 -.lO .68 .73 .78 .19 -.19 .87 .18 .21 .16 -.16 .59 .34 .40 -.19 .19 .76 .37 .22 .38 - .35 .49 .48 .52 .06 -.09 .63 .44 .35 .36 - .36 .69 .41 .48 .55 - .Ol .68 .15 .22 .14 -.12 .I3 .38 .41 .42 -.42 .64 .48 .38 .15 -.15 .64 .55 .54 .40 -.12 .62 .43 .51 .I4 -.14 .69 .46 .49 .07 - .07 .71 .42* .44* .25* - .22* .68

Note. (M) = Male subject. * p < .Ol.


correlated with the amount of time spent in those situations for that individual. The actual number of situations is less than 20 for each subject as some situations were designated as imposed and are not included here. At the bottom of the table are the mean correlations for each predictor variable, averaged across the 21 subjects. All averaging of correlations was done using r to z transformations, since correlations as a random variable often fail to satisfy normality assumptions (Cohen & Cohen, 1983). The significance of these averaged correlations was tested by a t test with 20 (N - 1) degrees of freedom, which tests the individual subject correlations against the null hypothesis that their mean is 0. The summed goal attainment weighted by importance was the strongest correlate of time spent in situations (mean r = .44, t(20) = 10.37, p < .Ol), followed by positive affect felt in the situation (mean r = .27, t(20) = 7.04, p < .Ol), and the satisfied outcome ratings (mean r = .25, t(20) = 6.87, p < .Ol). Interestingly, negative affect was not a significant predictor when looking at the mean correlation. However, looking at average correlations does not capture the diversity in the individual subjects’ responses. Looking first at affect, for 14 of the subjects, time spent in situations correlated positively with positive affect and negatively with negative affect, as predicted. However, six of the subjects showed the opposite pattern, and both types of affect correlated positively with time for subject BA. There were also considerable individual differences, as the positive affect correlations ranged from - 57 to .65 and the negative affect correlations ranged from - .62 to 55. Thus, affect is a good predictor of time spent in situations for many individuals. However, some persons spent time in situations despite the affective consequences. Presumably these individuals spent more time in affectively negative situations in order to reach long-term goals.

It was hypothesized that choosing to spend time in situations would be related to the presence and attainment of important goals. The average correlations between time and goal importance, attainment, and attainment weighted by importance were .40, .42, and .44, respectively. Thus, this hypothesis also received support from the nomothetic average correlations. In addition, an idiographic analysis of each subjects’ data also suggests the importance of goal attainment for situational choice. Out of the 63 correlations in the three columns in Table 2 pertaining to goals, only one is negative. The correlations indicate that goal attainment is a ubiquitous correlate of situational choice for individuals. It is interesting to note that for individuals the attainment of goals is not significantly more correlated with their situational choices than is goal importance. Weighting the attainment of goals by their importance does not result in stronger effects, because the two were so highly correlated with each other.

Looking at the outcome ratings of satisfaction and frustration, these correlations are somewhat lower than the affect and goal ratings. For


17 out of the 21 subjects, though, the presence of satisfying outcomes correlated positively with time spent in situations, and frustrating outcomes correlated negatively with time spent in situations. Recall that subjects indicated the outcomes that leave them particularly satisfied and frustrated in each of their 20 situations. Inspection of the types of outcomes mentioned indicates that these do appear to have face validity as indicators of goals. For example, for the situation “study in the library,” two frequently mentioned outcomes are “when I accomplish what I had planned to do” and “when I accomplish nothing.” For the situations “jogging” and “swimming,” two satisfying outcomes mentioned were “when I go 3 miles” and “doing my set goal of laps.” For the situation “working as a volunteer,” a frustrating outcome was “kids not showing progress.” Thus these outcomes clearly have a goal-oriented flavor to them. It should be kept in mind that one reason why these correlations are lower is that they are based on a single outcome for each situation, whereas the goal ratings are based on 17 goals for each situation.

The last column in Table 2 shows the multiple correlations for predicting time spent in situations from goal attainment x importance, positive and negative affect, and the satisfied outcome ratings. The frustrated outcome ratings were not included in the multiple regression as these were highly inversely correlated with the satisfied ratings (r = - .77). The multiple correlations are uniformly high, ranging from .49 to .87, with an average of .68. Thus a considerable amount of variance in subject’s situational preferences can be accounted for by these variables.

We then examined the relationships between the same predictor variables and time spent in imposed or required situations. We will present only the mean correlations rather than each individual’s, since only 30% of the situations were rated as imposed. Thus, we did not compute individual subject correlations as they would not have been based on a sufficient number of cases to render them stable. First, regarding affect, a different pattern than was found with chosen situations emerged. Negative affect was significantly associated with time spent in imposed situations (r = .33, p < .Ol), whereas positive affect was not (r = -.Ol, n.s.). This was probably due to the fact that the majority of the imposed situations were of the work/study variety. In terms of the goal variables, neither importance nor attainment were associated with time spent (T’S = .09 and .13, n.s.), nor was the product term a significant predictor (r = .14, n.s.). The difference between the importance and attainment correlations with time spent were significantly different within chosen versus imposed situations (for importance, z = 2.69, p < .Ol; for attainment, z = 2.57, p = .Ol). Neither the satisfied nor the frustrated outcome ratings were significant predictors (r’s = - .02 and .07, n.s.). Thus, only negative affect was significantly associated with time spent in situations which are not of the subject’s own choosing. Thus, the predicted relationships


between goals, affect, and time spent in situations were generally stronger in chosen versus in imposed situations. We also examined the relationship of affect to goal attainment within imposed situations. This correlation was negative and statistically significant (r = - .26, p < .05), though it is not significantly different from that correlation within chosen situations (r = - .19, p < .05).

Next, the relevance ratings of the 17 goals were factor analyzed. Recall subjects had rated the relevance of the 17 goals to 20 common (as opposed to idiosyncratic) situations. The purpose of these ratings was to obtain factors representing broad classes of goals. The number of factors to be extracted was determined by a joint consideration of variance accounted for and by inspection of the scree plot of eigenvalues. Using these criteria, three factors emerged, which were rotated obliquely. The three factors accounted for 58% of the variance. Sixteen of the goals and their factor loadings are given in Table 3. The criteria for factor inclusion was a loading of .40 or higher. The goal “get tangible rewards” did not meet the factor inclusion criterion. The factors were labeled interpersonal (seven items), self-achievement (five items), and hedonistic (six items). The correlations between the factors were .07 (interpersonal and self- achievement), .31 (interpersonal and hedonistic), and - .20 (self-achieve-

TABLE 3 FACTOR LOADINGS OF GOALS

Factors

Goal Interpersonal Self-Ach Hedonistic

Convey information to others Being accepted by others Make new friends/get to know

others better Influence/persuade others Pleasant social exchange Caring for others Seek information or advice

.87

.81

.77

.76

.69

.62

.58 Do a good job/develop competence .Ol Physical well-being -.15 Maintain/enhance self-esteem .24 Get things accomplished .03 Reduce conflict .34 Relaxation .02 Have fun/enjoy oneself .17 Eating/drinking .22 Sexual activity/intimacy .03

Percentage of variance 33 16 9

.02

.03

- .Ol .16 .12 - .05

- .08 .39 -.03 .29

.lO -.33 .78 - .32 .75 .41 .73 .18 .65 - 53 .48 .15 .02 .77 .lO .76

-.08 SO .09 SO

- .07 .09

Note. Self-Ach = Self-Achievement.


ment and hedonistic). Subjects had previously indicated (in Phase 1) whether their situations were either social, work (including study), or recreational. Time spent in each situation type was then examined as a function of the importance and attainment of each of the relevant goal clusters for each of the three situational types. That is, importance and attainment of interpersonal goals were correlated with time spent in social situations, self-achievement goals with time spent in work/study situations, and hedonistic goals with time spent in recreation situations. Also, positive and negative affect within the three situation types were correlated with time spent in these situations, as were the satisfied and frustrated outcome ratings. Table 4 shows these average within-subject correlations, which were obtained from data pooled across the 21 subjects. The first two columns in the table reveal two interesting findings. The first is that time spent in work/study situations correlated negatively with positive affect and positively with negative affect. This is the opposite pattern from both social and recreation situations, and is contrary to the original hypothesis that individuals select situations in order to maximize positive affect and minimize negative affect. Apparently, the longer individuals spend studying and working, the unhappier they are. With this in mind, we went back and reexamined the six individuals whose atfect correlations were opposite to prediction in Table 1. It was found that these individuals spent significantly more time in work/study situations than did the remaining 15 individuals (t = 4.58, p < .Ol). Also, these six subjects had higher need for achievement scores on the PRF (Jackson, 1974) than did the remaining 15 subjects (14.14 vs 11.0, f = 3.61, p < .Ol). This would explain why these six subjects’ affect correlations were in the opposite direction. Wilson (1960) found that both need for achievement and hours spent studying were negatively related to happiness. The strongest correlations between affect and situational choice were found for recreation situations (T’S = 52 and - .28). Thus the hedonic-affect theory appears to apply especially to the selection of recreation situations and somewhat to social situations (T’S = .36 and - .07), but not to work/study situations.

The middle three columns of Table 4 show the correlations between goal attainment weighted by importance and time spent in the three types of situations. Of primary interest is the diagonal from upper left to lower right, which shows the correlation between the relevant goal factor and time spent in the corresponding situational type. Time spent in social situations correlates highest with interpersonal goals (r = .28), while time spent in work/study situations correlated .51 with self-achievement goals, and hedonistic goals correlated .45 with time spent in recreation situations. This finer grained analysis indicates that a small number of related goals is sufficient to account for substantial variance in the choice of situations.


TABLE 4 POOLED INTRASUBJECT CORRELATIONS BETWEEN AFFECT, GOALS, AND TIME SPENT IN

SPECNC SITUATION TYPES

IxA IxA IxA PA NA (Int) (Ach) (He4 SAT FRU

Social situations- interpersonal goals (N = 201) .36 -.07 .28 .lO .17 .ll -.13

Work/study situations- self-achievement goals (N = 112) -.16 .41 .09 Sl - .07 -.06 .18

Recreation situations- hedonistic goals (N = 175) .52 - .28 .21 -.08 .45 .30 -.16

Note. Int = interpersonal goals. Ach = self-achievement goals. Hed = hedonistic goals.

DISCUSSION The present study was designed to identify some of the reasons why

individuals choose to spend time in certain situations. It was found that goal importance, goal attainment, positive affect and the experience of satisfying outcomes were generally all good predictors of choosing to spend time in situations. The most important conclusions that can be drawn are the following:

1. Goal attainment and goal importance were the best predictors of situational choice behavior. However, the product score of attainment weighted by importance did not contribute above and beyond the individual component variables.

2. The above relationships were significantly stronger in chosen situations as opposed to situations which subjects were required to be in.

3. The majority of subjects spent more time in situations in which they experienced positive affect and less time in situations in which they felt a predominance of negative affect. For a small group of subjects, however, who spent more time in work/study situations and who had high need for achievement scores, the relationship between affect and situational choice was in the opposite direction. Thus, affect is not a good predictor of situational choice for all individuals.

4. The satisfying and frustrating outcome ratings do appear to have some validity as measures of goal attainment. Each correlated significantly with a direct measure of goal attainment, and each correlated in the predicted direction with affect.

5. When considering only a cluster of relevant, related goals, the correlations between goal attainment x importance and situational choice increased for work/study situations, but decreased for social situations.


This decrease was perhaps due to the fact that there was some overlap between social and recreation situations. Perhaps hedonistic goals are also relevant in social situations, and need to be taken into account when predicting time spent in such situations.

6. Positive affect was correlated with both the presence of important goals and their attainment. Negative affect, on the other hand, was only marginally related to the absence and nonattainment of important goals and only within imposed situations.

One of the most important findings of this study was that having important goals was strongly associated with positive affect, irrespective of goal attainment. This may be because most people in this setting are confident, based on past experience, that if they have goals, eventually they will achieve them. An alternative is that simply having goals to work for leads to the selection of certain situations-goal striving is itself sought. In order to select among these two alternatives, one could study other groups who have had a less benign background and therefore received less rewards in pursuing their goals. Such studies would help indicate whether having goals is an important determiner of situational choice only for those who have achieved success in reaching their goals in the past. Also, the direction of causality between affect and goal attainment is unclear. It might be that happy people are better equipped to achieve their important goals.

Another important conclusion is that not all situations are selected based on affective outcomes. At times people will select situations that produce immediate negative affect in order to achieve other goals. Thus, long-range goals may sometimes overshadow short-term affect in making situational choices. Individuals are not necessarily short-term hedonists, but can endure negative affect to acquire long-range goals.

A third interesting finding to note is the difference between negative and positive affect. Goal attainment was more strongly related to positive affect than to less negative affect. This supports the conclusion of Diener and Emmons (1984) that positive and negative affect result from different processes and are not polar opposites. However, it may also be the case that being preoccupied with trying to avoid negative goals or incentives produces negative affect (Klinger, 1977). Such a possibility was not ad- dressed in the present study, since only positive (approach) goals were examined.

When examining the differences between chosen and imposed situations, it was clear that the predictors of time spent in these two types of situations are quite different. Neither the presence nor attainment of goals was related to time spent in imposed situations, nor was the amount of positive affect felt. All three of these variables, on the other hand, predicted time spent in selected situations. Only negative affect emerged as a significant predictor for imposed situations, and this was most likely


due to the nature of these situations (predominantly work and study situations).

Still another interesting finding was that a reduced number of goals was able to account for as much variance in choice of recreation and work situations as a much larger list. The initial assumption made in the present study was that the more important goals a person had in a particular situation, the more likely they would be to spend time in that situation. The factor analysis of goals and the differential correlations between the three goal clusters and corresponding situation types were quite informative in this respect. The correlations between goal importance x attainment and time spent in work/study situations (Table 4) were higher in this sample than when considering all situations and all goals together (Table 2). This indicates that some of the goals correlated negatively with the choice of work situations, and eliminating these contlicting goals using only compatible goals identified through factor analysis increased the correlations for time spent in work situations.

Several of the results of this study are unsurprising; for example, the fact that positive affect and goal attainment influence one’s choice of situations. However, there were also unexpected and intriguing findings. Subjects rated goals as important which were attained. Whether individuals actually attain more of their important goals or whether they defend themselves psychologically by granting importance only to what is attainable is a fascinating question. Another unexpected finding is the fact that some individuals usually select situations despite their aversive affective consequences. Another interesting finding is the large difference between individuals in the basis for their situational choices. A rewarding avenue for future research would be to explore these individual differences in greater depth. A parallel finding is that certain broad classes of situations (e.g., work and recreation) are chosen on very different motivational grounds, suggesting that a universal motivational structure across all situations does not exist. It appears instead that people base their situational choices on differing motivations, depending on the type of situations being considered.

It is interesting to compare the present results with the theoretical formulations of Klinger (1977), Deci (1975; Deci & Ryan, 1985), Apter (1984), and the research of Pervin (1983) and Palys and Little (1983). Klinger views affect as feedback indicating that progress toward goals is being made. The correlation between goal attainment and affect in this study supports his contention. However, we also found that simply having important goals, regardless of whether or not progress was being made toward them, was also predictive of positive affect. This finding would appear to be at odds with Pervin’s (1983) data which showed that the affective value of a situation was not related to the number of important goals present in the situation. The finding that those individuals who


chose to spend more time in work situations experienced more negative and less positive affect dovetails with Palys and Little’s (1983) finding that persons who were engaged in long-range projects were less satisfied with their lives than persons primarily involved with short-term projects. Thus, a hedonic theory of situational or project choice does not apply to these “future-oriented” individuals. The finding that individuals chose recreation situations more on the basis of affect than goal attainment is compatible with the intrinsic motivation literature (Deci, 1975; Deci & Ryan, 1985). That is, choice of recreation situations may be best explained not in terms of anticipated goal attainment but rather in terms of affect arising from direct involvement with the recreational activity. Finally, Apter’s (1984) distinction between telic and paratelic modes is relevant to the choice of work versus recreation situations. That is, choosing a work (or study) situation is characteristic of a telic mode, where the individual is motivated to reach some future goal. On the other hand, individuals in the paratelic mode are “present-oriented,” deriving satisfaction and pleasure from the immediate situation. Thus, the present results are compatible with previous research and with a number of current theoretical formulations.

Certainly not all of the possible influences on situation selection have been exhausted in the present study. Snyder (1981) argues that the process of choosing situations reflects basic features of one’s personal identity: one’s conception of self, one’s beliefs and attitudes, and one’s characteristic dispositions. The present results indicate that personal goals and affect are additional determining factors. Other influences on situational choices include role relations and friendship formations among group members, the availability of certain situations, and situational and interpersonal pressures (Furnham, 1982). Also, personality-related emotions (Emmons & Diener, 1986) appear to be another important factor. Clearly, there are a number of different influences on situational choice, all of which need to be explored before we can fully understand why individuals choose certain life situations for themselves and simultaneously rule out others.

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A goal-affect analysis of everyday situational choices