Forming implementation intentions (if-then plans) improves goal attainment¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 2 studies · 1 causal r?, 1 quant-synthesis r? · q3 · i2 medium
Currency · newest study 2017 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

An implementation intention is a plan of the form "If situation Y is encountered, then I will initiate goal-directed behavior X", formed in addition to the goal itself. The claim is that the plan, not only the strength of the goal, raises the chance that the goal is reached.

Subclaims¶

q3 i2 Across 94 independent tests (8461 participants), forming an implementation intention raised goal attainment relative to forming a goal intention alone, d = .65 (95% CI .60 to .70), with a medium-to-large effect in the academic domain (d = .72); most tests sampled university students. → Gollwitzer & Sheeran 2006

q3 i? In two randomized field experiments in online courses (n = 17,963), a brief writing activity combining mental contrasting with implementation intentions made learners in individualist cultures 32% (first experiment) and 15% (second experiment) more likely to complete the course, and left learners in collectivist cultures unaffected. → Kizilcec & Cohen 2017

q4 i2 Across 94 independent tests, implementation intentions had a positive effect of medium-to-large magnitude (d = .65) on goal attainment. → Gollwitzer 2006

Evidence¶

Gollwitzer & Sheeran 2006¶

Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation Intentions and Goal Achievement: A Meta‐analysis of Effects and Processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119. doi:10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38002-1

q3 · meta-analysis, inverse-variance weighted, power not established · i2 · medium-to-large effect, d = .65, 95% CI .60 to .70 · n=94 tests from 63 reports (8461 participants) · quant-synthesis · r?

A meta-analysis of 94 independent tests from 63 reports (searches covering January 1990 to December 2003, plus unpublished studies requested from authors) compared people who formed an if-then plan with people who held only the goal intention. The overall effect was d = .65, and effects were heterogeneous, Q(93) = 173.46. Most tests sampled university students (k = 79, d = .65); effects were similar for correlational and experimental designs (d = .70 and .65), for self-report and objective outcomes (d = .63 and .67) and for published and unpublished tests (d = .65 and .67), and were medium or large in every goal domain examined, including academic achievement (d = .72). Read in full, as a scanned PDF from the University of Konstanz repository (KOPS).

"The overall impact of forming implementation intentions on goal achievement was d = .65 based on k = 94 tests that involved 8461 participants."

Kizilcec & Cohen 2017¶

Kizilcec, R. F., & Cohen, G. L. (2017). Eight-minute self-regulation intervention raises educational attainment at scale in individualist but not collectivist cultures. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(17), 4348–4353. doi:10.1073/pnas.1611898114

q3 · two randomized controlled field experiments (abstract only) · i? · no standardized effect size in the abstract; completion 32% and 15% more likely · n=17,963 · causal · r?

Two randomized experiments in online courses assigned learners to a mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII) writing activity (positive outcomes of the goal, the obstacles to it, and concrete if-then plans to overcome them) or a control activity. Learners in individualist cultures were more likely to complete the course after MCII; learners in collectivist cultures were unaffected, and natural language processing of the responses found MCII effective when the learner's main obstacle was predictable and surmountable, such as work or family obligations, but not a practical constraint or a lack of time. Read from the abstract and significance statement only (NCBI E-utilities record for PMC5410783; the PMC page and the PNAS PDF both returned bot challenges). The abstract does not report completion rates by arm, an effect size, whether the trials were preregistered, or what the control activity was.

"Learners in individualist cultures were 32% (first experiment) and 15% (second experiment) more likely to complete the course following the MCII intervention than a control activity. In contrast, learners in collectivist cultures were unaffected by MCII."

Studies bearing on this claim¶

Does an if-then plan for the expected obstacle add to the goal alone? This table gathers the studies behind this claim and the 0 narrower claims that bear on it: 2 distinct studies (1 quant-synthesis, 1 causal), q3, 1 of 2 with an effect size coded. One row per study, codes as each entry records them; no effect is averaged and no verdict is drawn. Built by scripts/synthesize_claim.py from eval/synthesis/; a row that looks wrong is fixed on the claim it comes from.

Discussion¶

The field evidence qualifies the pooled effect. The meta-analysis pools mostly laboratory tasks and university students (k = 38 laboratory tests, k = 79 student samples), and its effect is an average over heterogeneous tests. The one large field test here, in online courses, found a gain in completion for some learners and none for others: cultural context and the kind of obstacle a learner faces moderated whether planning helped. A self-paced course should not assume that adding an if-then planning prompt will raise completion for every learner.

MCII is not implementation intentions alone. The online experiments added mental contrasting to the if-then plan, so they test the combination, not the plan by itself.

Not a goal-setting claim. The comparison in the meta-analysis is a goal intention with an if-then plan against the same goal intention without one; it says nothing about whether setting a goal helps compared with setting none. For that, see Goal setting improves performance.

Related Claims¶

• Self-regulated learning interventions have a moderate effect (0.65) on learning outcomes in online and blended environments — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it

• Goal setting improves performance — related: goal setting is the step an implementation intention is added to

• Self-regulated learning improves achievement — related: if-then planning is a forethought-phase strategy
• A single Tipping Point explains dropout patterns in only about a quarter of online courses, so lesson-level dropout behavior is more complex than one critical lesson — related: online course dropout
• Mental contrasting with implementation intentions — the strategy the online experiments tested
• Youth most positively reported Project With's impact on goal setting, with 81 percent saying it made them more likely to make plans to reach their goals — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Achievement effects of group-based mastery learning are larger for elementary students than for high school or college students — related
• All four students achieved above the performance levels teachers expected on the Goal Attainment Scale, exceeding their personal goals by 10% to 20% — related
• Open-ended planning prompts at the start of a MOOC increase course completion by 29% — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Within-person reminders of implementation intentions improve students' short-term study behaviour — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Adolescents classified as impatient are more likely to drop out of high school even when they state an intention to finish — related
• Goal setting and strategic planning positively predict attainment of personal course goals in MOOCs — related