Many important personal goals, such as health, career, finances, and social relationships, entail repeatedly performing the same (or similar) actions over time (e.g., to exercise daily or save money weekly). When pursuing such ongoing goals, people are likely to accumulate multiple experiences of goal conflict (e.g., multiple occasions when one failed to exercise or save as intended). How might these past experiences of goal conflict inform expectations about future goal pursuit? This research examines how the perceived relationship among past conflicts with a focal goal-in particular, perceived variety-shapes expectations. Perceived variety refers to the holistic assessment of differentiation (vs. similarity) among items in an assortment. Six studies demonstrate that perceiving greater variety among past conflicts with a focal goal decreases expectations of encountering conflict in the future. This occurs because perceiving greater variety makes the causes of past events seem collectively unstable (i.e., more temporary and one-off). Consequently, holding constant the number and content of past events, perceiving greater variety among past conflicts with a focal goal reduces expected goal conflict. Further, considering past events that prompt (i.e., motivate) less (vs. more) engagement in causal search (i.e., events that are less self-relevant, or positive) attenuates perceived variety's effects. The findings contribute to understanding of goal conflict, variety and similarity, and forecasting in goal pursuit. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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认识到过去的冲突与焦点目标之间存在更大的多样性可以减少预期的目标冲突。


许多重要的个人目标，例如健康、职业、财务和社会关系，都需要随着时间的推移重复执行相同（或类似）的行动（例如，每天锻炼或每周省钱）。在追求此类持续目标时，人们可能会积累多次目标冲突的经历（例如，多次未能按预期锻炼或储蓄）。这些过去的目标冲突经历如何影响对未来目标追求的期望？这项研究探讨了过去与焦点目标的冲突之间的感知关系（特别是感知的多样性）如何塑造期望。感知多样性是指对分类中的商品之间的差异（与相似性）进行整体评估。六项研究表明，以一个焦点目标感知过去冲突的多样性会降低对未来遇到冲突的预期。发生这种情况是因为感知到更大的多样性使得过去事件的原因看起来集体不稳定（即更加暂时和一次性）。因此，保持过去事件的数量和内容不变，感知过去与焦点目标的冲突之间的更大多样性会减少预期的目标冲突。此外，考虑促使（即激励）较少（相对于更多）参与因果搜索的过去事件（即不太自相关或积极的事件）会减弱感知多样性的影响。这些发现有助于理解目标冲突、多样性和相似性，以及目标追求中的预测。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。