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and Multiple-Goal Pursuit
Annu. Rev. Organ. Psychol. Organ. Behav. 2017.4:401-423. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
Andrew Neal,1 Timothy Ballard,1

and Jeffrey B. Vancouver2
1
School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia;
Access provided by 190.18.62.90 on 05/16/20. For personal use only.
email: andrew@psy.uq.edu.au, t.ballard@uq.edu.au

2
Department of Psychology, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 45701; email: vancouve@ohio.edu
Annu. Rev. Organ. Psychol. Organ. Behav. 2017. Keywords

4:401–23
self-regulation, goal striving, effort, choice, formal theory, computational
First published online as a Review in Advance on
January 25, 2017 modeling
The Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Abstract
Organizational Behavior is online at
orgpsych.annualreviews.org Self-regulation is the dynamic process by which people manage competing
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych- demands on their time and resources as they strive to achieve desired out-
032516-113156 comes, while simultaneously preventing or avoiding undesired outcomes.
Copyright c 2017 by Annual Reviews. In this article, we review the current state of knowledge regarding the pro-
All rights reserved cess by which people manage these types of demands. We review studies in
the organizational, cognitive, social psychology, and human factors litera-
tures that have examined the process by which people (a) manage task de-
mands when working on a single task or goal; (b) select which tasks or goals
they work on, and the timing and order in which they work on them; and
(c) make adjustments to the goals that they are pursuing. We review formal
theories that have been developed to account for these phenomena and ex-
amine the prospects for an integrative account of self-regulation that can
explain the broad range of empirical phenomena examined across different
subdisciplines within psychology.
401
INTRODUCTION
At any point in time we may have several goals that we are striving to achieve, some potentially
Dynamic system: conflicting with others. As a result, we have to make choices. For example, we have to choose
a system in which the where to spend our time, how much effort to exert, and what strategies to employ, given the
elements change over deadlines that we are under. Despite efforts to focus on tasks that enable rapid progress toward
time
our core goals, we can be distracted or interrupted by other tasks. Some goals may be relatively
easy to achieve whereas others may be difficult. Perhaps most critically, the environment may
change rapidly and unpredictably, making it difficult to assess whether a goal can be achieved,
whether a strategy for achieving a goal is still effective, or whether other goals need attention. As
a result, we may need to abandon a goal that may not be attainable in the time available, postpone
it, or change our strategy for achieving it. This is the process of self-regulation. In many jobs the
consequences of failing to self-regulate properly can simply mean that time is not used efficiently;
in other jobs the consequences can be catastrophic.
Consider an air traffic controller managing the flow of traffic into and out of an airport during
the morning peak. The goals of the controller are to achieve a safe and orderly flow of traffic while
maintaining her workload within safe limits (Neal et al. 2014). The tasks are to manage arrivals
and departures, and to keep the system up to date (data management). At the start of the shift,
the traffic is light and there is sufficient time to accomplish all of the tasks needed to keep the
traffic flowing in a safe and orderly manner. Traffic levels gradually increase as the morning peak
approaches and the controller becomes busier, but she is still able to keep up with the pace of work.
Suddenly, at the height of the morning peak, one of the departing aircraft needs to turn back for
an emergency landing. The controller needs to rapidly assess the situation, develop a plan, and
implement it. The emergency consumes all of the controller’s attention, and she has no capacity to
do anything else. Although she is able to keep all of the aircraft safely separated, the other arriving
and departing aircraft fail to get the clearances they need and are delayed. The emergency lasts
20 minutes, and the controller is exhausted at the end. The controller’s workload was outside of
safe limits during this period, and a single error could have had catastrophic consequences.
Air traffic control is just one example of a job in which people have to manage competing
demands in a dynamic and uncertain environment. Although the demands and consequences of
error may be more extreme than in many other jobs, the types of demands faced by air traffic
controllers are similar to those faced by workers in nearly every sector of the economy. Truck
drivers, retail clerks, doctors, teachers, software developers, and business executives all experience
the need to juggle multiple goals in a changing and unpredictable environment.
We review the current state of knowledge regarding the process by which people manage these
types of demands (for earlier reviews published in the Annual Review of Psychology, see Karoly 1993,
Lord et al. 2010). The focus of our review is on self-regulation as a dynamic process and includes
both basic and applied research conducted in a range of disciplines, including cognitive, social, and
organizational psychology, as well as human factors. To keep the scope of the review manageable,
we focus on process rather than content. For this reason, research examining the types of goals
that people pursue, as described for example by self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci 2000) or
regulatory focus theory (Higgins 1997), falls outside of the scope of this review.
We start by presenting a dynamic systems perspective on self-regulation and discuss its impli-
cations for how to best understand the process. Subsequent sections examine different aspects of
the process. The first examines the process by which people manage task demands when working
on a single task or goal. The second examines the process that determines which tasks or goals
a person works on, as well as the timing and order in which the person works on them. The
third examines the process by which people make adjustments to the goals that they are pursuing.
402 Neal · Ballard · Vancouver

The fourth examines a specific issue that has been the subject of ongoing controversy, namely
the role of self-efficacy within self-regulation. The final sections examine the prospects for an
integrative account of self-regulation that can explain the broad range of empirical phenomena
examined across different subdisciplines, as well as consider the practical implications of such an
account.
A DYNAMIC SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE

Within psychology, the term “self-regulation” is often used interchangeably with “self-control,”
which is the capacity to override automatic or habitual response tendencies (Bauer & Baumeister
2011). For this reason, a lot of the research on self-regulation focuses on the person and how they
control impulses or desires. However, our opening example illustrates the importance of taking a
systems approach, in which self-regulation is viewed more broadly as the process by which a person
interacts with their environment (Bandura 1997). To understand this process, it is important to
consider the system as a whole and not just focus on the person. This is because the person and
the environment form a closed loop. The behavior of the system as a whole emerges from the
interactions among its elements, and is critically dependent upon the structure of the loop and the
internal dynamics of the elements within that loop.
Closed Loop Dynamics

Self-regulation theories generally assume that behavior is goal directed and that the person acts on
their environment, or aspects of themselves, to attain desired outcomes or to maintain the system
in a desired state (Austin & Vancouver 1996). This can be described as a negative feedback loop or
control system (see Figure 1 and sidebar, The Negative Feedback Loop). It assumes the person
monitors a variable and responds to the discrepancy between the current state of that variable and
the goal. This control process may be reactive or proactive. Reactive control involves responding
to discrepancies as they occur. Proactive—or anticipatory—control requires the person to act
preemptively before discrepancies occur ( Jagacinski & Flach 2003).
Gain
(goal importance) Disturbances
Rate
Regulatory agent
Referent Output State

(goal level) +
–
Monitor
statet = k = statet = 0 +⌠ (output • rate + disturbances)dt

0
⌡k
Figure 1
The simple negative feedback loop of a control system.
www.annualreviews.org • Dynamic Self-Regulation 403

THE NEGATIVE FEEDBACK LOOP
The negative feedback loop provides a simple and parsimonious way to explain many phenomena. For example,
consider the following question: Does one work more (i.e., put in more effort) when one’s wages are relatively
high as opposed to low? Economic and psychological theory would predict that the answer is yes (i.e., higher wage
translates into more effort). However, a study of taxi drivers in New York City, where wages fluctuate as a function
of the ease of picking up passengers, found exactly the opposite (Camerer et al. 1997). This behavior is difficult to
explain using standard economic models of choice, because it violates the principle of expected-utility maximization.
However, the behavior is simple to explain using the principles of negative feedback control. It appears that drivers
in this study set a target for how much money they want to earn and quit when the target is reached. When the
wage rate is higher, it takes less time for the drivers to reach their goal, and hence, they quit earlier.
There are four factors that determine how rapidly a negative feedback loop is able to eliminate
a discrepancy, or indeed, whether it is able to eliminate it at all. The first is the gain, which
determines the magnitude of the response to the discrepancy. Gain is an index of goal importance.
The second is the rate at which the environmental variable responds to the action of the person.
The third is disturbances, which are external forces that produce changes independent of the
person’s actions. The final factor is delay. For example, it may take time for a person to detect
changes in the environment or for the actions by the person to have an effect on the environment.
Even very simple closed loop systems can have surprisingly complex emergent properties.
For example, it can be difficult for a negative feedback loop to eliminate a discrepancy when the
environment is changing rapidly and there are lags or delays in the response of the system. If the
gain is too low, the response will be sluggish, and it will take a long time for the discrepancy to be
eliminated. If the gain is too high, the system can overshoot the target, oscillating back and forth
and never converging on the desired referent state. Some form of proactive control is typically
required under these circumstances ( Jagacinski & Flach 2003).
The Goal Hierarchy

Self-regulatory theories typically assume that goals are hierarchically structured (e.g., Carver &
Scheier 1998). There are likely to be many levels of the hierarchy, but in a work context it can
be useful to think about the hierarchy in terms of actions, tasks, and goals (see Figure 2). The
worker typically needs to carry out a set of actions to complete a task and also needs to complete
a set of tasks to achieve a goal. In turn, the achievement of goals may enable the satisfaction of
higher-order needs, such as achievement, security, and affiliation. It is possible for an action to
serve more than one task, a task to serve more than one goal, or a goal to serve more than one
Needs Goal Goals Task Tasks Action Actions

Environment
regulation regulation regulation
Figure 2
Illustrative example of a goal hierarchy in a work context, showing feedback loops.

need. It is also possible for tasks, goals, and needs to conflict. A theory of self-regulation needs to
be able to explain how these processes are coordinated across different levels.
Self-regulatory theories also typically assume that the regulatory processes at the higher levels
Duration of effort:
of the hierarchy unfold over longer timescales than processes at the lower levels. For example, the length of time for
Lord et al. (2010) discuss the concept of cycle time, which they define as “the time required for which a person works
information to cycle through the entire loop” (p. 547). They argue that the regulation of self- on a particular activity
concept may have a cycle time measured in years, whereas the regulation of tasks may have a
cycle time measured in minutes, hours, or days. Although there is a large body of research on
self-concept and social identity in work settings, little of this is longitudinal (e.g., Day & Sin
2011), and even less has examined the process by which self-concept is regulated over time. It
is not clear whether the cycle time for concepts at higher levels of the hierarchy is longer than
that for concepts at lower levels, and if so, why. For example, it is probably reasonable to assume
that information regarding one’s self-concept is obtained less frequently than information about
lower-level goals, but when that information is obtained, it is possible that self-concept could
change very rapidly. Thus, it may not be that information takes longer to cycle through the entire
loop but, rather, that information potentially impacting higher-level loops is simply less frequent.
A theory of self-regulation needs to be able to tease apart these different types of explanations.
Choice and Effort

Self-regulation can also be viewed as a choice problem. The choice that people face is what to do,
when to do it and how to it. Environmental constraints determine the choices that are available,
while the individual’s needs, desires, fears, and concerns determine the choices that they make
(Locke & Latham 1990). In our opening example, the choices made by the air traffic controller
were highly constrained, because she had to work as hard as she could to keep the aircraft safely
separated. Giving up was not an option. The constraints may not be as strong in other work settings,
where individuals may have greater discretion in how they manage their demands. Giving up on
a task or goal may not only be possible in some situations, but may in fact be the best choice.
Some choices may be made deliberately by carefully considering the consequences of the different
options. Other choices may be made rapidly, without fully considering the potential consequences.
In still other cases, the person may not consider any consequences at all, because the response is
triggered automatically.
The choices that people make determine how effort is allocated. In its most general sense, the
term effort refers to the amount of work that is done on something during a particular period of
time. There are three factors that determine the total amount of work that is done on something:
direction, duration, and intensity. Direction refers to what a person works on at a particular point
in time. Duration refers to the length of time for which the person works on that activity. Intensity
refers to how hard the person works. For physical tasks, intensity might be quantified in terms of
energy exerted per unit of time. For cognitive tasks, intensity is typically conceived of in terms
of the amount of attention or concentration at a point in time. Nonroutine tasks, such as the
aircraft emergency described in our opening example, require intense mental effort (Neal et al.
2014). Choices regarding the direction and duration of effort are determined, in part, by beliefs
regarding the intensity of the effort required.
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE STUDY OF SELF-REGULATION

The preceding observations have numerous implications for the study of human behavior. First,
behavior needs to be studied dynamically because variables within the closed loop have reciprocal

interactions over time and often change in important ways. Unfortunately, the majority of em-
pirical research has treated self-regulation as static. Cross-sectional studies testing for mediation
or moderation tell us very little about the underlying mechanisms, because of the problem of
circular causality. Experimental studies using between-subjects designs can be useful to establish
that one variable within the loop can exert a causal effect on another, but they tell us little about
the behavior of the system over time. For example, they cannot tell us how long an effect will last,
or whether a variable will return to baseline after disturbance.
Some researchers have turned to within-subjects, longitudinal designs (e.g., Donovan &
Williams 2003). Longitudinal designs are necessary but are not sufficient to draw conclusions
about dynamics. A common approach is to use multilevel models to examine the relationships
among variables at the within-person level, controlling for the effect of time (Yeo & Neal 2008).
These models are static. To understand the dynamics of a system, it is necessary to understand
how the variables within it change over time (Ployhart & Vandenberg 2009). In particular, it is
necessary to understand how long it takes for the level of a variable to change or to produce a
response in another variable. Fortunately, sophisticated statistical techniques, such as the latent
change score model, have been developed that enable researchers to examine these questions
(Grimm et al. 2012, Liu et al. 2015).
Second, the observations in the previous section point to the importance of developing and
testing formal (i.e., mathematical) models of self-regulation. Most theories of self-regulation
are described verbally, and are therefore imprecise and easily misunderstood (Lewandowsky &
Farrell 2011). There is no guarantee that the theory is internally consistent, or is able to produce
the pattern of behavior that the proponents of the theory claim. Furthermore, there are many com-
peting views regarding the mechanisms responsible for self-regulation, and it is difficult to know
whether these theories would generate qualitatively different predictions using verbal argument
alone. The field needs formal theories and models that describe the processes that generate the
empirical effects, and studies need to be designed in a way that allows these theories to be tested.
Ultimately, the objective for self-regulation research should not be to simply generate coun-
terintuitive findings that challenge existing thinking, but rather the cumulative development of a
general theory that can account for the empirical findings within the field. This involves taking
separate, specialized theories and unifying them within a more general account that is able to
explain a wide range of empirical phenomena and eliminating theories that do not explain these
phenomena. This process of formalization, elimination, integration, and unification is the hall-
mark of a mature science, and is essential if the field is to make cumulative progress. We believe
that the field of self-regulation has reached the point where this is now possible. In the following
sections, we review the field’s progress on different aspects of the problem, and then consider what
an integrated account might look like.
INTENSITY
In this section, we examine the process that determines how hard a person works when completing
a specific task or pursuing a specific goal. We focus on mental, rather than physical, effort because
the majority of research conducted over the past thirty years has focused on cognitive tasks.
Capacity and Demand

The theoretical account of mental effort that dominates most branches of psychology draws on
the concept of cognitive resources (e.g., Hendy et al. 1997, Hockey 1997, Humphreys & Revelle
1984, Kahneman 1973, Kruglanski et al. 2012). It is assumed that people have a limited capacity for
controlled information processing (Shiffrin & Schneider 1977), or what has more recently been

called cognitive control (Botvinick & Braver 2015). Controlled information processing requires
attention, is typically serial in nature, and is under volitional control. When a task or action is
performed in a controlled manner, the person needs to maintain a representation of the task or
Intensity of effort:
action in focal attention, and coordinate the perceptual, cognitive, and motor activities required to how hard a person
perform the task (Botvinick & Braver 2015). It is this process of cognitive control that is thought works on that activity
to generate the subjective experience of mental effort. Individual differences in the capacity for
cognitive control are thought to be indexed by measures of general mental ability and working
memory (Kanfer & Ackerman 1989, Randall et al. 2014).
The level of demand for resources is determined by the amount of work to be done and the
time available (Hendy et al. 1997). The amount of work to be done depends on the difficulty of the
task, the strategy that is being used, and the skill of the person. The difficulty of a task decreases
as the rules and procedures for performing the task become automated (Anderson 1982), and the
person is able to recognize patterns and solutions on the basis of prior experience (Klein 1993,
Logan 1988).
Resource allocation models of effort assume that the effect of diverting resources from a task
depends on the level of demand. Kanfer & Ackerman (1989) found that goal setting exerted
differential effects on performance depending on the resource demands of the task and the ability of
the participants. Assigning difficult goals impaired performance when cognitive resource demands
were high and facilitated performance when resource demands were low. This effect was stronger
for low-ability participants than for high-ability participants. They explained these effects by
arguing that difficult goals increased the tendency to engage in self-monitoring and evaluation,
which diverted resources from the task to the goal.
There are four ways in which a person can manage an increase in task demand. One option is to
compensate by allocating more resources to the task. A second option is to reduce the amount of
work that must be done by changing strategy or goal level. For example, the person may sacrifice
accuracy for speed (Hendy et al. 1997), adopt a simpler heuristic (Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier 2011),
or decrease the difficulty of the goal. A third option is to increase the time that is available to
complete the task or achieve the goal, by adjusting the deadline. A final option is to give up on the
task or goal.
Sequential sampling theories of decision making provide a formal explanation of the mech-
anisms by which changes in effort and strategy affect performance. These theories assume that
people make decisions by accumulating evidence for various possible actions until the evidence
for an action passes a threshold, at which point that action is selected (Brown & Heathcote 2008,
Busemeyer & Townsend 1993, Ratcliff et al. 1999). Studies have shown that people respond to
time pressure by lowering their threshold to reduce the amount of information to be processed
(Palada et al. 2016; Vuckovic et al. 2013, 2014) or increasing the rate of information processing
(i.e., the drift rate; Rae et al. 2014). The former effect is consistent with a change in strategy,
whereas the latter effect is consistent with an increase in the intensity of effort. These studies
suggest that changes in strategy may be more common than changes in intensity.
Motivational Potential and the Cost of Effort

Theories of effort intensity assume that people will limit the intensity of effort they apply to a
task (Brehm & Self 1989). The maximum amount of effort that a person is prepared to allocate
to a task is known as the motivational potential of the task. If the task requires more effort than
the person is prepared to provide, the person will use an alternative strategy for managing task
demand. The primary source of evidence for these theories has come from studies using measures
of cardiovascular reactivity, which are thought to be an indicator of mental effort. These studies

typically use between-subjects manipulations of task difficulty and have found that cardiovascular
reactivity is higher for participants performing a difficult task than for participants performing a
task that is either easy or impossible (for a review, see Wright 2008).
Resource allocation accounts of effort have emphasized the role of expectancy and value as
determinants of motivational potential (Brehm & Self 1989, Hockey 2013, Kanfer & Ackerman
1989, Kruglanski et al. 2012). People are thought to allocate more effort to a task if they believe
that effort is likely to lead to a valued outcome. For example, Eubanks et al. (2002) found that
when participants had the chance to win a large reward ($100), heart rate increased progressively
as the difficulty of the task increased. When participants had a chance of winning only a small
reward ($10), heart rate reached its peak at intermediate levels of difficulty and declined as the task
became progressively harder. Similarly, Sun et al. (2014) found that people allocated more effort
toward reaching a goal when the incentive associated with goal accomplishment was higher.
Recently, research within the cognitive neuroscience literature has examined the subjective
cost of effort. According to these accounts, the exertion of effort carries a cost. Kool et al. (2010)
conducted a series of experiments in which participants were free to choose among alternative
courses of action that varied in their demand for controlled information processing. Participants
avoided the demanding course of action, even when it provided the quickest way to reach the task
goal. Westbrook et al. (2013) obtained similar results by using a revealed preference procedure
in which participants made a series of choices between performing a low-effort task for a small
reward or a high-effort task for a larger reward. The results imply that there is a subjective cost of
effort, with participants being prepared to forgo higher reward to perform the low-effort task.
Kool & Botvinick (2014) tested a model of effort allocation derived from economic labor
supply theory. The model assumes that people will attempt to maximize the utility of their effort
when faced with a choice between a highly demanding task that pays a wage (e.g., work) and a less
demanding task that does not (e.g., leisure). The predictions of economic labor supply theory were
confirmed in a series of experiments. Specifically, participants reduced the amount of time spent
on the high-effort task when faced with an income-compensated wage decrease, and increased
the amount of time spent on the high-effort task when faced with an income-compensated wage
increase. The results suggest that effort allocation decisions were based on the marginal costs and
benefits of changes in effort, and that the subjective cost of effort increased as participants applied
more effort.
It is interesting that the findings from experimental studies of effort choices are not consistent
with the results of the taxi driver study described in the sidebar, The Negative Feedback Loop
(Camerer et al. 1997). The experimental studies show that people consider the costs and benefits
of effort when faced with an explicit choice, but the taxi driver studies suggest that they may not act
so rationally when pursuing a goal. It is possible that the taxi drivers did not consider the potential
benefits of working longer or had other goals that they were pursuing.
Fatigue
Fatigue is a psychological state that is characterized by an aversion to applying effort, a depressed
mood, and a lack of vigor (Hockey 2013). As the person becomes fatigued, the application of
effort becomes more aversive, and the person becomes more inclined to conserve effort. Studies of
workload and fatigue have demonstrated that the maintenance of effort over a prolonged period
is positively associated with fatigue, particularly when the person has to deal with disruptions that
impede goal progress (e.g., Matthews & Desmond 2002, Sonnentag & Zijlstra 2006, Zohar et al.
2003). Vigilance studies have demonstrated that the requirement to maintain focused attention
and remain alert over a prolonged period can also be fatiguing (for a review, see Warm et al.

2008). Experimental studies examining the aftereffects of fatigue have demonstrated that people
are reluctant to apply effort on subsequent tasks after performing an initial task requiring effort
(van der Linden et al. 2003a,b).
MGPM:
Similar effects have been reported within the social psychology literature using the label ego multiple-goal pursuit
depletion. Studies have found that people who engaged in an act of self-control performed worse model
on a subsequent task requiring self-control than participants who did not engage in an earlier act
of self-control (Muraven & Baumeister 2000). However, a registered replication trial involving
23 independent laboratories failed to replicate the ego-depletion effect (Haggar et al. 2016). It
is possible that a simple act of self-control may not be sufficient to deplete (i.e., fatigue) one’s
cognitive resources.
There is also controversy over the explanation for fatigue and ego depletion. Cognitive ener-
getic accounts (e.g., Kruglanski et al. 2012) use energy as a metaphor for explaining the effect of
fatigue and ego depletion. These accounts argue that processing resources are depleted by use but
are replenished gradually over time. If the rate of expenditure exceeds the rate of recovery, then this
will drain the person’s energy reserves, producing a cumulative buildup of fatigue. Hockey (2013)
has recently argued that the energy metaphor is misleading and that fatigue is not an inability to
work but is, rather, a lack of desire. According to Hockey’s (2013) motivational control model,
fatigue develops when the person is required to maintain a high level of effort and is not able
to use alternative strategies for managing task demands. This often occurs when pursuing goals
that are mandated or required (“have to” goals), and is associated with elevated stress and anxiety.
When the person pursues goals for intrinsic reasons (“want to” goals), high levels of effort are
accompanied by feelings of energy and alertness. According to this view, the experience of fatigue
plays an important role in the way that people manage task demands, preventing people from
investing too much effort in the pursuit of one task or goal at the expense of other tasks and goals.
DIRECTION AND DURATION

In this section, we examine the process that determines how effort is allocated when the person
has several different tasks or goals that they need to work on. We start with experimental studies
that have examined how people make choices among competing tasks or goals and then review a
formal model, the multiple-goal pursuit model (MGPM), that has been developed to account for
the phenomena observed (Vancouver et al. 2010). Most of this research has been conducted within
the organizational psychology literature. We then review multitasking research within human
factors and cognition, which has examined the order in which people complete tasks and the costs
of task switching. We finish with a review of studies within social psychology that examined how
people make choices when one action can serve multiple goals (“multifinality”), and whether the
activation of one goal can suppress the activation of other goals making it difficult for people to
switch tasks or goals (“goal shielding”).
Prioritization
A growing number of studies have examined how people prioritize when pursuing multiple goals
(e.g., Louro et al. 2007, Schmidt & DeShon 2007). These studies use within-subjects designs,
requiring participants to repeatedly make choices regarding the actions or tasks that they carry
out, where acting on one goal involves potential costs to other goals. These designs allow dynamic
patterns of behavior to emerge as people interact with their environment. Analyses typically
examine whether a person allocates resources to the goal with the greater need (i.e., the one
furthest from being achieved) or the goal with the best chance of achievement (i.e., the one closest

to being achieved). These studies have shown that the relationship between relative progress and
prioritization is complex and is influenced by several factors. We review the findings from studies
of prioritization in detail and then describe progress this literature has made toward an integrative
theory of multiple-goal pursuit.
First, prioritization is dependent on expectations regarding what it will take to achieve a goal.
When multiple goals are expected to be too difficult to achieve, people are likely to focus on the
one with the best chance of achievement (Schmidt & Dolis 2009). When it is possible to achieve
multiple goals, people often prioritize the goal with the highest need at a given point in time,
although some people switch to the goal with the best chance as a deadline approaches (Louro
et al. 2007, Schmidt & DeShon 2007, Schmidt & Dolis 2009). These effects have been explained
by changes in expectancy. As a person gets closer to a deadline, the expectancy of achieving both
goals often decreases to the point where the person no longer believes that more than one goal
can be achieved.
Second, prioritization is influenced by the incentives for goal achievement (Schmidt & DeShon
2007). People prioritize goals more heavily when they have greater incentives. However, people
are also sensitive to incentive framing. People demonstrate a stronger tendency to prioritize the
goal with the greatest need when failure to achieve the goal is penalized, compared to when
achievement of the goal is rewarded. When goals with these two different types of incentives
are pursued simultaneously people allocate more resources to, and are therefore more likely to
achieve, the goal for which failure is penalized.
Third, studies have shown that environmental uncertainty plays a role during multiple-goal
pursuit. Schmidt et al. (2009) examined resource allocation in an environment where disturbances
could randomly increase the amount of work required to achieve a goal. They found that people
allocated most resources to the goal with the greatest need in this type of environment. However,
when the amount of work required to achieve a goal was predictable, people allocated most
resources to the goal with the best chance and switched to other goals once that goal was achieved.
Ballard et al. (2016a) found that uncertainty regarding the effects of actions influenced resource
allocation. Specifically, when participants knew, with certainty, what the outcomes of different
actions would be, they showed a strong preference to prioritize one goal over another. When
the outcomes of actions were uncertain, preferences were weaker as indexed by less predictable
behavior. Uncertainty in the level of performance also influences prioritization (DeShon et al.
2004). People prefer to allocate resources to goals for which feedback regarding goal progress is
specific and immediate (Northcraft et al. 2011). These findings together imply that predictable
environments facilitate the use of proactive, top-down strategies, where a person can adhere to
a particular strategy without the need to revise their plan. Ambiguous environments, however,
require bottom-up, reactive strategies, where a person must alter their resource allocation as new
information becomes available.
Fourth, the type of goals being pursued also influences prioritization. An approach goal is
a desired outcome that a person wants to achieve, whereas an avoidance goal is an undesired
outcome that a person wants to prevent (Elliot & Thrash 2002). Although studies of multiple-
goal pursuit have typically focused on approach goals, some have compared how people allocate
resources while pursuing avoidance goals. When pursuing avoidance goals, the goal with the
greatest need is the one for which the undesired state is closer. Studies show that the tendency to
prioritize the goal that has the greatest need is stronger when pursuing avoidance goals than when
pursuing approach goals (Ballard et al. 2016a,b). This effect may be explained by the influence
of expectancy being weaker when pursuing avoidance goals. Ballard et al. (2016b) examined how
these decisions compared to an optimal (i.e., reward-maximizing) model. They found that, relative
to the optimal model, people tended to be risk seeking while pursuing avoidance goals, because

they made decisions that increased the likelihood of achieving both goals, but also increased the
likelihood of failing both of the goals. People tended to be risk averse while pursuing approach
goals, because they made decisions that increased the likelihood of achieving at least one goal,
Formal theory:
but decreased the likelihood of achieving both goals. Ballard et al. (2016a) also examined resource a mathematical
allocation among people pursuing one approach and one avoidance goal and found that people representation of the
tend to initially prioritize the approach goal and switch priority over time to the avoidance goal. hypothetical (latent)
The research reviewed thus far points to the presence of different resource allocation strategies processes thought to
be responsible for
that people can use to pursue multiple goals. However, the differences between these strategies
observed phenomena
cannot be fully appreciated until one examines the emergent behavior produced as each strategy
DFT: decision field
plays out over time (Kozlowski et al. 2013). When a person initially allocates resources to the goal
theory
that has the best chance of being achieved (i.e., the goal that needs the least amount of work), they
will tend to allocate resources to this goal until it is achieved. This strategy has been referred to as
the sequential strategy (Orehek & Vazeou-Nieuwenhuis 2013). When a person allocates resources
to whichever goal has the greatest need, a goal “juggling” effect occurs, because the person’s actions
change the relative need of the goals being pursued. Over time, goals will progress at similar rates.
This strategy has been referred to as the concurrent strategy.

Recently, there has been increased emphasis on developing a general, formal theory that can
explain the benchmark set of phenomena revealed in studies of multiple-goal pursuit. The first step
toward this theory was the MGPM (Vancouver et al. 2010). According to the MGPM, the choice
between competing goals is determined by comparing the subjective expected utilities of acting on
each goal and then selecting the goal with the highest expected utility. Expected utility represents
the multiplicative combination of expectancy and a subjective sense of value, referred to as valence.
Valence is the product of the discrepancy (i.e., need) and the degree of importance the goal has
to the individual (i.e., gain). Expectancy represents a subjective sense of the resources required to
achieve the goal compared to the resources an individual is willing or able to put forward. The
subjective sense of resources required (e.g., time needed) is determined by the discrepancy and a
belief regarding the rate at which the discrepancy can be reduced.
The MGPM accounts for the tendency to prioritize the goal with the greatest need when the
expectancy for the goals is relatively high and the goal with the best chance of being achieved
when expectancy for one or more goals is relatively low. As a result, it can explain the tendency
to switch from prioritizing the goal with the greatest need to the goal with best chance of being
achieved as the deadline approaches. It can also account for individual differences in the timing
of this priority shift and the effect of incentives on goal choice. More recently, Vancouver et al.
(2014b) added a learning component to the MGPM. It enables the model to explain how people
learn to anticipate the effects of environmental disturbances and form beliefs regarding the rates
of resources use on goal progress.
The most recent step in the path toward a general theory of multiple-goal pursuit is the
extended multiple-goal pursuit model [the MGPM∗ (Ballard et al. 2016a)]. The MGPM∗ is an
integration of the MGPM and decision field theory [DFT (Busemeyer & Townsend 1993)], which
is a sequential sampling model that describes how preferences for courses of action can develop
when there are many possible consequences of the actions. According to the MGPM∗ , people
decide between actions by considering, one at a time, the possible consequences of the action with
respect to the various goals that one is pursuing. The person’s preference for an action develops
over time as he or she considers different consequences and accumulates more information about
the effect an action may have on progress toward different goals.
One of the primary advantages of the MGPM∗ over the MGPM is that it can account for
different types of goals and can therefore explain why patterns of resource allocation change
when people pursue different combinations of approach and avoidance goals. Furthermore, as a

result of incorporating the sequential sampling architecture described by DFT, it can be applied
to decisions involving any number of consequences or goals, while accounting for the fact that
people have limited information processing capacity. The MGPM∗ can therefore account for
empirical phenomena that previous versions of the MGPM could not. For example, the MGPM∗
can explain why people make less predictable decisions when there is greater uncertainty in the
consequences of an action. It also can be used to make predictions not only about which action
will be selected, but also about the length of time it will take to make a decision.
Multitasking
Experimental studies of multiple-goal pursuit have tended to use relatively simple paradigms in
which people perform concurrent tasks that start and end at the same time. However, multiple-
goal pursuit is often more complex. An air traffic controller, for example, may have numerous
different tasks that need to be completed. The tasks may vary in urgency and importance, so some
tasks can be delayed whereas others cannot. When the controller performs a task, she may be
interrupted by another task, forcing her to switch attention from one task to the other, causing
the tasks to be reordered. The generic name for this process of managing interleaved tasks is
multitasking.
There is a small body of research on multitasking in the human factors literature that examines
how people determine the order in which work is done. Much of the early research was done in
manufacturing, using observational methods (Sanderson 1989). This research demonstrated that
people use a range of different rules or strategies. Commonly used strategies include performing
tasks in the order they arrive (“first-come-first-served”), in the order that they must be completed,
or in order of importance. Hayes-Roth & Hayes-Roth (1979) conducted an experimental study,
using an errand running task. They found that participants used an opportunistic strategy involving
a mix of top-down planning and bottom-up reorganizing. Participants started with a loose plan,
which they reorganized as they went along, in response to changes in the environment. Raby &
Wickens (1994) examined task scheduling among pilots and found that task importance played a
critical role in determining the timing and order in which tasks were completed. Higher-priority
tasks were more likely to be completed on time, and lower-priority tasks were abandoned as
workload increased.
Hannah & Neal (2014) recently developed a series of formal models to explain how people
might manage interleaved tasks in an environment in which the flow of work is only partially
predictable. The models assume that people monitor outstanding tasks and select the task with
the greatest value at a given point in time. The models differ in the way that value is assessed.
The simplest model uses a first-come-first-served strategy, in which value is based on the order in
which the tasks appeared. Alternative models assume that value is determined by the importance of
the task, or is subject to time discounting, decreasing as a function of time to deadline. The models
were evaluated by examining their ability to account for the order and timing of actions carried
out by expert air traffic controllers in a series of high workload scenarios. The most successful
version of the model assumes that controllers select tasks on a first-come-first-served basis, and
that tasks with short deadlines are executed immediately, whereas tasks with longer deadlines are
assessed to see whether they need to be performed immediately, or can be deferred.
There is also a body of research that focuses more narrowly on task switching. This research
suggests that task switching is common. For example, Gonzales & Mark (2004) observed office
workers spending an average of three minutes on a task before switching. Task switching can be
triggered by external interruptions, or so-called self-interruptions, caused by factors such as the
desire to take a break or do something more interesting (Katidioti et al. 2014). Both experimental

and observational studies have shown that interruptions adversely affect performance, either be-
cause the person fails to resume the original task, fails to resume it at the same point of progress,
or takes additional time to resume the task (Altmann et al. 2014, Loft et al. 2015). Katidioti et al.
(2014) reported that pupil dilation increased several seconds prior to self-interruptions, suggesting
that the decision to voluntarily switch tasks is effortful and requires deliberation.
Multifinality and Goal Shielding

Another line of research, based predominately within social psychology, has focused on under-
standing how people self-regulate when multiple goals can be served by a single course of action
(Kruglanski et al. 2013). These experiments tend to use between-person designs, in which par-
ticipants are given simple tasks such as choosing between items of clothing (Chun et al. 2011) or
which foods to eat (Köpetz et al. 2011), and examining the extent to which participants’ choices
also serve other goals such as identifying with the university or staying healthy. The results suggest
that people may prefer actions that enable progress toward multiple goals (“multifinal” actions)
over actions that enable progress to a single goal (“unifinal” actions), presumably because they have
greater value (Chun et al. 2011). However, increasing the number of goals served by an action may
reduce the perception of the action’s instrumentality with respect to each goal (Zhang et al. 2007).
This body of research also suggests that there may be situations where people prefer actions
that only enable them to make progress toward a single goal, such as when one goal is highly
activated (Zhang et al. 2007) or when a goal has already been achieved (Chun et al. 2011). People
may also prefer unifinal actions when they are oriented toward performing an activity quickly.
However, people may prefer multifinal actions when they are oriented toward selecting the best
option (Orehek et al. 2012).
There is a related body of research within social psychology on goal shielding. Goal shielding
refers to the tendency for an activated goal to inhibit the accessibility of other goals (Shah et al.
2002). Goal shielding has commonly been measured by having participants first list a series of
attributes they have the goal of achieving and then performing a lexical decision task, where the
aim is to identify as quickly as possible whether the stimuli (words and non-words) represent
personal attributes (Bélanger et al. 2013, Shah et al. 2002). These studies typically find that
response times for listed attributes are higher when primed with other attributes in the list than
when primed with nonattribute words. This finding is taken as evidence of goal shielding, because
the attribute prime is said to inhibit the accessibility of the other attributes. Goal shielding may
be enhanced among people who are highly committed to the goal, have a high need for cognitive
closure, or have a higher level of anxiety, but may be diminished among people with higher levels
of depression (Shah et al. 2002).
GOAL LEVEL
In this section, we examine the process that determines the level of difficulty for quantitative goals.
Quantitative goals are common in organizational settings, because performance is often assessed
on a continuous scale (e.g., number of articles published, speed of completion). Goal level has
also been called “level of aspiration” (Frank 1935, Lewin et al. 1944) and “goal difficulty” (e.g.,
Locke & Latham 1990). The goal difficulty research highlighted the importance of goal level as an
important variable in motivation because individuals need to work harder to achieve more difficult
(i.e., higher-level) goals.
Much of the research on the antecedents of goal-level choice has focused on the variables that
affect the probability of an assigned goal being accepted (Locke & Latham 1990). This research has

identified expectancies and values as the key determinants of goal acceptance (Klein et al. 2008).
Predictions regarding the specific level of a goal that one is willing to adopt have only recently been
attempted. Specifically, Vancouver & Wang (2016) created a computational model based on goal
theory (Locke 1997, Locke & Latham 2004). This model assumed that goal level is determined
by expected utility, which is the multiplicative combination of expectancy and value. When a goal
level is assigned, the lesser of the two levels is adopted. If no goal is assigned, the expected utility
value is adopted. Alternatively, Starbuck (1963) describes a model where all possible goal levels are
assessed for their expected utility and then the level with the highest expected utility is adopted.
One specific phenomena receiving a fair amount of empirical attention is the observation that
one adopts a goal level higher than one’s previous performance (Donovan & Williams 2003). This
is what Lewin et al. (1944) referred to as goal-performance discrepancy and what Bandura (1997)
referred to discrepancy creation.1 This phenomenon arises when self-efficacy is high. However,
Scherbaum & Vancouver (2010) noted that self-efficacy merely predicts when a goal level will be
higher than past performance; it does not explain the process. In an attempt to explain the process,
Scherbaum & Vancouver developed and tested a computational model, which represented this
process using four negative feedback loops. The model is one of the few computational models
that represents more than one level of the hierarchy noted in Figure 2. The model, which was
validated experimentally, demonstrated that discrepancy creation may arise as a result of increases
in the efficiency of one’s actions, a phenomenon that may also produce increases in self-efficacy.
SELF-EFFICACY
The research on self-efficacy provides a good example of why the dynamics of self-regulation
requires greater attention than it is commonly given. To set the stage, consider a recent meta-
analysis of self-regulated learning that highlighted self-efficacy as a key variable worth studying
because of its high correlation with performance and learning (Sitzmann & Ely 2011). Indeed, as
Bandura & Locke (2003) noted, several meta-analyses have shown strong positive relationships
between important outcome variables and self-efficacy. However, self-efficacy has become a point
of controversy among self-regulation theorists (e.g., Bandura 2012, 2015; Vancouver 2012). The
controversy stems from the likely reciprocity among self-efficacy, performance, and ability, as
well as the multiple processes involved. Specifically, self-efficacy is defined as the belief in one’s
capacities—a belief largely formed from past performances (Bandura 1997). Thus, any correla-
tion between self-efficacy and performance, even if the performance measure is taken after the
self-efficacy measure, may simply reflect ability differences. This notion that self-efficacy may
not always improve performance was substantiated in another meta-analysis that used (a) within-
person designs to control for individual differences in ability, (b) lagged pairings to assess the
reciprocal effects (e.g., pairing each self-efficacy measure with a performance measure taken in the
next wave of data collection), and (c) controls for within-person ability change (Sitzmann & Yeo
2013). Not only did this meta-analysis find no overall significant effect of self-efficacy on perfor-
mance, it also found strong support for performance’s influence on self-efficacy, substantiating
the claim that the correlations typically found between self-efficacy and performance may be due
to reverse causality.
1
The use of the term discrepancy makes the concept easily confused with the discrepancy concept in control theory. They are
related, but they are not the same thing. In these cases, the discrepancy refers to the distance between the previous performance
level and a new goal adopted for a future performance episode. In control theory the discrepancy is the distance between the
current state of a variable and the goal for that variable.

However, Sitzmann & Yeo (2013) also found substantial variance in the effects of self-efficacy
on performance, with the effects ranging from positive to negative. Indeed, several studies have
shown that self-efficacy can negatively influence performance (e.g., Beattie et al. 2011; Vancouver
et al. 2001, 2014a; Yeo & Neal 2006). However, other research has shown a positive influence
(e.g., Seo & Ilies 2009). Moreover, a growing body of research has shown a nonlinear relationship
between self-efficacy and performance or motivation (e.g., Beattie et al. 2014, Beck & Schmidt
2015, Eden & Aviram 1993, Schmidt & DeShon 2009). For instance, Vancouver et al. (2008)
found a nonmonotonic, discontinuous relationship between self-efficacy and resources committed
to reaching a goal. As the goal became more difficult to achieve (i.e., self-efficacy decreased) the
resources committed to the goal increased, creating a negative effect of self-efficacy. However, at
the point where the goal was perceived impossible to achieve, the person would not commit any
resources to the goal, creating a positive effect of self-efficacy.

To better understand the complex effects of self-efficacy, Vancouver & Purl (2016) created
a computational model of the processes that generate these effects. The model specifically
represents the Schmidt & DeShon (2010) study that found self-efficacy was positively related
to performance when performance feedback was unambiguous, but negative when feedback
was ambiguous. According to the model, self-efficacy has a negative effect when feedback is
ambiguous because it reduces the amount of resources believed to be required to achieve the
goal. Self-efficacy has a positive effect when feedback is unambiguous because it increases the
perception of goal achievability. Vancouver & Purl (2016) concluded that control theory (Powers
1973) and social cognitive theory (Bandura 1997) may not differ as much as previously thought
in their descriptions of human self-regulation.
PROSPECTS FOR AN INTEGRATIVE THEORY OF SELF-REGULATION

Earlier in this review we noted that the hallmarks of a mature science are formalization, integration,
and unification. The self-regulation literature has reached a point where these goals are achievable.
Although this literature has consisted mainly of theories that are relatively narrow in focus, some
theories of self-regulation are more comprehensive [e.g., social cognitive theory (Bandura 1997),
control theory (Carver & Scheier 1998)]. Most theories of self-regulation, however, are informal.
As our review highlights, formal models of self-regulation are now starting to appear and have
improved our understanding of the dynamics of self-regulation. We believe the field is now ready
for a general, unified, formal theory that can account for empirical effects observed across the
different branches of psychology.
In this section, we discuss the potential for the architecture highlighted in formal models such
as the MGPM to provide a foundation for such a theory. The MGPM and MGPM∗ provide an
explanation for the way that effort is allocated when the person has several different tasks or goals
on which they need to work. As highlighted in the previous sections, the MGPM and the MGPM∗
can account for the empirical effects that have been observed in studies of multiple-goal pursuit, but
there are other effects relating to direction and duration to which the architecture has not yet been
applied. We consider whether these effects could be accounted for within this existing architecture
and then consider whether the same architecture can be used to account for phenomena at lower
and higher levels of the goal hierarchy (e.g., effort intensity and goal management).
Direction and Duration

In principle, the MGPM and MGPM∗ should be able to account for the effects observed in
the multifinality, goal shielding, and multitasking literatures. Turning first to multifinality, the

MGPM∗ provides a natural explanation for why people should prefer multifinal actions. According
to the MGPM∗ , the motivational value of a particular outcome takes into account the effect of that
action on a person’s salient goals. Thus, actions that benefit more than one goal are often perceived
as more attractive, because they produce higher overall value. The MGPM∗ also explains why
preferences for multifinal actions may change as goals are achieved. Specifically, goal achievement
reduces the utility of acting on a goal because outcomes that serve that particular goal are no
longer needed.
There are at least three ways in which the MGPM∗ might explain goal shielding. First, goal
shielding may emerge as a result of the reciprocal relationship between expectancy and effort.
That is, the MGPM∗ assumes that people are more likely to choose to work on goals with a higher
expectancy of success. As people work on a goal, expectancy for goal achievement increases,
whereas the expectancy of other goals is likely to stay the same or decrease as a result of neglect.
Over time, this process can create a short-lived, positive feedback loop until the goal is achieved. A
second, similar account is that goal striving reinforces the salience of the focal goal relative to other
goals. According to this account, paying attention to a particular goal increases the likelihood of
paying attention to that goal in the future. Finally, goal shielding may emerge as a result of lateral
inhibition, which refers to the tendency for actions to compete with each other for preference.
When a person has a strong preference for a particular action, preferences for other actions are
presumably suppressed. Over time, lateral inhibition leads a person to maintain the same course
of action. A challenge for future research is to determine which of these accounts is correct.
An integrative theory of self-regulation must also explain how people manage task demands
in environments such as the ones described in the section Multitasking, i.e., where multiple tasks
varying in urgency and importance are interleaved with one another, and the person may face
challenges such as interruptions and reorganizing of tasks. The research on multitasking reviewed
above suggests that people are flexible in the way that they manage tasks in these environments,
sometimes completing tasks in order of appearance, sometimes in order of urgency, and sometimes
in order of importance. If it is possible to defer a task, people often will; however, as workload
increases, they tend to focus on the tasks that are the most important, shedding less important
tasks.
The MGPM∗ architecture will likely need to be extended to account for behavior in these types
of environments. One possible extension is to incorporate hyperbolic time discounting (Steel &
König 2006), so that the model can account for the tendency to prioritize goals with shorter
deadlines. Another possible extension is to treat task management as a multi-attribute decision
problem (Roe et al. 2001). There is a range of attributes that the person may consider when
choosing which task to perform, such as the time that has elapsed since the task appeared, time to
deadline, and importance. According to multi-attribute DFT (Roe et al. 2001), contextual factors
influence which attributes are considered. In this case, the critical factor is likely to be workload.
As workload increases, the person may focus more narrowly on the most important tasks to ensure
that they are completed on time. Developing and testing models that can account for multitasking
in these kinds of environments will be challenging. It will require rigorous studies designed to test
the predictions of competing accounts by independently manipulating factors such as deadlines,
importance, and workload.
Intensity
A general theory of self-regulation not only needs to explain where people choose to direct their
effort and how long they maintain it, but also the intensity of effort that is applied. An important
finding among studies of effort intensity is that there is a cost of effort. As a result, people often

will opt for low-effort tasks with lower rewards over high-effort tasks with higher rewards. This
effect can be explained using the MGPM∗ architecture by assuming that people consider the
costs, as well as the benefits, of effort when making choices regarding the actions or tasks that
Direction of effort:
they carry out. Whereas the exertion of effort is likely to benefit task goals, it may be detrimental which activity a person
to other goals such as the goals of preserving energy or maintaining low stress levels. However, works on
the subjective cost of effort is likely to vary over time. For example, as a person becomes fatigued,
the cost of effort should increase along with the preference for low-effort tasks or actions. This
explanation is equivalent to that within economic labor supply theory (Kool & Botvinick 2014),
except that effort is regulated dynamically, and the model represents the goals that the person is
pursuing, which enables it to explain behavior that is not rational according to standard economic
models.
A general theory of self-regulation should also be able to explain the complex relationship
between difficulty and effort. Increasing difficulty often produces an increase in effort intensity,
up to the point where the goal is perceived to be impossible to achieve or a maximum level of
effort is reached, at which point effort drops dramatically. This phenomenon can be explained by
assuming that one agent regulates the actions that are carried out and a second agent controls the
direction of effort. This second agent might monitor the intensity of effort and will abandon an
action if the cost of pursuing the current course of action outweigh the benefits. However, similar
to multitasking, it will be challenging to develop and test models that are capable of accounting
for the full range of empirical phenomena that have been observed. For example, studies will need
to confirm whether a single model can account for performance on tasks where the person can
control intensity (e.g., tasks that require physical effort), and tasks where intensity is difficult to
control (e.g., tasks that require concentration).
Goal Level and Importance

A general theory of self-regulation must also be able to explain how people adjust goal difficulty,
how goal importance changes over time, and how these higher-level processes interact with the
processes that control the direction and duration of effort. We believe that the process that regu-
lates the difficulty and importance of goals is fundamentally the same as the process that regulates
the direction and duration of effort, and that both can be explained by the negative feedback ar-
chitecture used in the MGPM and MGPM∗ . People have a range of competing needs, including
achievement, security, and affiliation. Changes to the level or importance of different goals may be
determined by their potential to satisfy the needs of the person, and may influence the direction,
duration, and intensity of effort. The impact of effort on the environment in turn changes the
potential for goals to satisfy the needs of the person.
The above description is largely consistent with longstanding descriptions of the hierarchy
represented in Figure 2 (e.g., Carver & Scheier 1998, Powers 1973), except that higher-order
outputs were presumed only to determine goal levels. That is, in our more updated description,
the higher-level agent may control the gain of the lower-level agent. This provides a potential way
to account for insatiable (i.e., maximizing) needs. Specifically, self-regulation accounts generally
assume needs can be satiated, which is likely true for many needs (e.g., thirst). Using that assump-
tion, the person can pursue other needs when a focal need is satiated, or the deprivation in other
needs becomes too great. However, insatiable needs create a problem because they would cause
the person to be continually motivated and always striving for more. However, if one assumes that
needs, and particularly insatiable ones (e.g., a need for achievement or security), work by sending
their outputs to gains rather than goal levels, then reducing the discrepancies in the goals to zero
would allow the person to move on because gains are merely a factor that weights discrepancies.

Thus, as goals are achieved the needs’ pull on the person abates and the person can focus their
efforts elsewhere. These are the kinds of conjectures that can only be tested computationally.
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

The study of self-regulation sits in what has been called “Pasteur’s quadrant” of science (Stokes
1997). It represents basic research that is inspired by practical problems commonly observed in
organizational settings, and which is designed to improve our understanding of the underlying
mechanisms that are involved. It remains an open question as to whether these mechanisms are
subject to cultural differences. We suspect that they may not be because the underlying processes
are relatively basic. However, cultural differences are likely to be important in the types of goals
that people pursue or the relative weights they apply to the needs that they seek to satisfy. For
example, affiliation may be a more powerful motivator of goal striving in collectivist cultures than
individualist cultures.
There is a range of practical problems for which an integrative theory of self-regulation might
prove useful. At the most general level, an integrative theory of self-regulation can be used to un-
derstand how to manage competing goals. Examples of applications include the development of
training programs and decision support systems to identify the types of situations that are difficult
for people to manage, and to enable them to make better decisions in these situations. Computa-
tional models could be used to identify situations in which people are likely to make suboptimal
decisions because of insufficient capacity to evaluate all of the alternatives or biases in the way
alternatives are evaluated (e.g., due to differential weighting of losses and gains). Computational
models can be incorporated into training programs to diagnose the way that people are evaluating
different options and select scenarios that maximize the opportunity for learning. An integrative
theory could also be used to understand how to frame goals to resolve conflicts, such as between
productivity and safety.
Our job as scientists is to create simplified representations of psychological processes, so that
the processes can be better understood. This simplification has traditionally been accomplished
by narrowing the focus of theory, and the phenomena under investigation. Theories of self-
regulation have historically focused on motivation and behavior in the context of a single goal. The
acknowledgment that people pursue multiple goals, and that behavior is an emergent property of
this process as it unfolds over time, has complicated the landscape. However, as we have attempted
to illustrate here, we can enhance our understanding of self-regulation and all its complexities if
we study the process the right way. The goal of research in this field should be to achieve a general,
formal theory of self-regulation that unifies separate subfields by providing a single explanation
for the growing number of empirical effects across the different branches of psychology. This task
will be challenging. However, with the theoretical understanding and methodological tools that
we have developed over the past several decades, this goal is achievable.
SUMMARY POINTS
1. Self-regulation is a dynamic process and hence needs to be studied dynamically (i.e.,
using within-subjects designs).
2. Formal (mathematical) theories are required. Informal (verbal) theories are inadequate,
because they are imprecise and easily misunderstood.

3. Formal theories have been developed to explain a range of specific phenomena, including
(a) how people allocate their effort when pursuing competing goals, (b) the order in which
people carry out tasks, and (c) how people adjust the level of difficulty of the goals that
they pursue.
4. The field is now ready for the development of a unified theory of self-regulation that
accounts for the broad range of empirical phenomena that have been observed across the
different branches of psychology.
FUTURE ISSUES
1. Empirical studies are required to develop and test the different components of a unified
theory.
2. Studies of effort intensity need to examine how intensity is regulated dynamically and
assess the situations under which people deviate from the norms prescribed by rational
economic theories of work and leisure.
3. The MGPM architecture will need to be extended to account for multitasking, especially
for jobs where people have to manage interleaved tasks and the flow of work is only
partially predictable.
4. The MGPM architecture will need to be extended to explain how people adjust goal
difficulty, how goal importance changes over time, and how these higher-level processes
interact with the processes that control the direction and duration of effort.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
The authors are not aware of any affiliations, memberships, funding, or financial holdings that
might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.
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OP04-FrontMatter ARI 9 February 2017 21:46
Annual Review
of Organizational
Psychology and
Organizational
Behavior
Volume 4, 2017
Contents
Perspective Construction in Organizational Behavior

Karl E. Weick p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 1
Self-Determination Theory in Work Organizations: The State
of a Science
Edward L. Deci, Anja H. Olafsen, and Richard M. Ryan p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p19
A Road Well Traveled: The Past, Present, and Future Journey of
Strategic Human Resource Management
Patrick M. Wright and Michael D. Ulrich p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p45
Emotions in the Workplace
Neal M. Ashkanasy and Alana D. Dorris p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p67
Field Experiments in Organizations
Dov Eden p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p91
Abusive Supervision
Bennett J. Tepper, Lauren Simon, and Hee Man Park p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 123
Recruitment and Retention Across Cultures
David G. Allen and James M. Vardaman p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 153
Multilevel Modeling: Research-Based Lessons
for Substantive Researchers
Vicente González-Romá and Ana Hernández p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 183
Team Innovation
Daan van Knippenberg p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 211
Evidence-Based Management: Foundations, Development,
Controversies and Future
Sara L. Rynes and Jean M. Bartunek p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 235
Transition Processes: A Review and Synthesis Integrating Methods
and Theory
Paul D. Bliese, Amy B. Adler, and Patrick J. Flynn p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 263
vi
OP04-FrontMatter ARI 9 February 2017 21:46
Trust Repair
Roy J. Lewicki and Chad Brinsfield p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 287
Comparing and Contrasting Workplace Ostracism and Incivility
D. Lance Ferris, Meng Chen, and Sandy Lim p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 315
Psychological Capital: An Evidence-Based Positive Approach
Fred Luthans and Carolyn M. Youssef-Morgan p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 339
Construal Level Theory in Organizational Research
Batia M. Wiesenfeld, Jean-Nicolas Reyt, Joel Brockner, and Yaacov Trope p p p p p p p p p p p p p 367
Dynamic Self-Regulation and Multiple-Goal Pursuit

Andrew Neal, Timothy Ballard, and Jeffrey B. Vancouver p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 401
Neuroscience in Organizational Behavior
David A. Waldman, M.K. Ward, and William J. Becker p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 425
Retaking Employment Tests: What We Know and What We Still

Need to Know
Chad H. Van Iddekinge and John D. Arnold p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 445
Alternative Work Arrangements: Two Images of the New World
of Work
Gretchen M. Spreitzer, Lindsey Cameron, and Lyndon Garrett p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 473
Communication in Organizations
Joann Keyton p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 501
Collective Turnover
John P. Hausknecht p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 527
Errata
An online log of corrections to Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and

Organizational Behavior articles may be found at http://www.annualreviews.org/errata/
orgpsych
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OP04CH16-Neal ARI 23 February 2017 8:46

Andrew Neal,1 Timothy Ballard,1

email: andrew@psy.uq.edu.au, t.ballard@uq.edu.au

Annu. Rev. Organ. Psychol. Organ. Behav. 2017. Keywords

402 Neal · Ballard · Vancouver

A DYNAMIC SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE

Closed Loop Dynamics

Referent Output State

statet = k = statet = 0 +⌠ (output • rate + disturbances)dt

www.annualreviews.org • Dynamic Self-Regulation 403

THE NEGATIVE FEEDBACK LOOP

The Goal Hierarchy

Needs Goal Goals Task Tasks Action Actions

404 Neal · Ballard · Vancouver

Choice and Effort

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE STUDY OF SELF-REGULATION

www.annualreviews.org • Dynamic Self-Regulation 405

Capacity and Demand

406 Neal · Ballard · Vancouver

Motivational Potential and the Cost of Effort

www.annualreviews.org • Dynamic Self-Regulation 407

408 Neal · Ballard · Vancouver

DIRECTION AND DURATION

www.annualreviews.org • Dynamic Self-Regulation 409

410 Neal · Ballard · Vancouver

This strategy has been referred to as the concurrent strategy.

www.annualreviews.org • Dynamic Self-Regulation 411

412 Neal · Ballard · Vancouver

Multifinality and Goal Shielding

www.annualreviews.org • Dynamic Self-Regulation 413

414 Neal · Ballard · Vancouver

resources to the goal, creating a positive effect of self-efficacy.

PROSPECTS FOR AN INTEGRATIVE THEORY OF SELF-REGULATION

Direction and Duration

www.annualreviews.org • Dynamic Self-Regulation 415

416 Neal · Ballard · Vancouver

Goal Level and Importance

www.annualreviews.org • Dynamic Self-Regulation 417

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

418 Neal · Ballard · Vancouver

www.annualreviews.org • Dynamic Self-Regulation 419

420 Neal · Ballard · Vancouver

www.annualreviews.org • Dynamic Self-Regulation 421

model of decision making. Psychol. Rev. 108:370–92

422 Neal · Ballard · Vancouver

integrating goal-choice and goal-striving processes. J. Appl. Psychol. 95:985–1008

www.annualreviews.org • Dynamic Self-Regulation 423

Perspective Construction in Organizational Behavior

Dynamic Self-Regulation and Multiple-Goal Pursuit

Retaking Employment Tests: What We Know and What We Still

An online log of corrections to Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and

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