Rumination as a Function of Goal Progress, Stop Rules, and Cerebral Lateralization

Online educational platforms increasingly allow learners to consume content at their own pace with on-demand formats, in contrast to the synchronous content of traditional education. Thus, it is important to understand and model learner engagement within these environments. Using data from four business courses hosted on Coursera, we model learner behavior as a two-stage decision process, with the first stage determining across-day continuation versus quitting and the second stage determining within-day choices among lectures, quizzes, and breaks. By modeling the heterogeneity across learners pursuing lecture and quiz completion goals, we capture different patterns of consumption that correspond to extant theories of goal progress within an empirical field setting. We find that most individuals exhibit a learning style where lecture utility changes as an inverted-U-shaped function of current progress. Our model may also be used as an early detection system to anticipate changes in engagement and allows us to relate learning styles to final performance outcomes and enrollment in additional courses. Finally, we examine the role of quizzes in how consumption patterns vary across learners in different courses and between those who have paid or not paid for the option to earn a course certificate.

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EXPRESS: We Succeeded Together, Now What: Relationship Power and Sequential Decisions in Couples' Joint Goal Pursuits

Journal of Marketing Research ◽

10.1177/00222437211034513 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 002224372110345

Author(s):

Hristina Nikolova ◽

Gergana Y. Nenkov

Keyword(s):

Goal Pursuit ◽

Underlying Mechanism ◽

Mobile App ◽

Financial Data ◽

Self Concept ◽

Relational Self ◽

Relationship Power ◽

Sequential Decisions ◽

Goal Progress ◽

Goal Pursuits

Research has demonstrated that after making high goal progress consumers feel liberated to engage in goal-inconsistent behaviors. But what happens after consumers make high progress in the context of joint goal pursuit? We examine how jointly-made progress towards a joint goal pursued by couples affects subsequent individually-made goal-relevant decisions. Across five experiments with both lab-created couples and married participants and financial data from a couples' money management mobile app, we show that after making high progress on a joint goal (vs. low or no progress), higher relationship power partners are more likely to disengage from the joint goal to pursue personal concerns (e.g., indulge themselves or pursue individual goals), whereas lower relationship power partners do not disengage from the joint goal and continue engaging in goal-consistent actions that maintain its pursuit. We elucidate the underlying mechanism, providing evidence that the joint goal progress boosts the relational self-concept of high (but not low) relationship power partners and this drives the effects. Importantly, we demonstrate the effectiveness of two theory-grounded and easily implementable interventions which promote goal-consistent behaviors among high relationship power consumers in the context of joint savings goals.

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A Remarkable Alliance: Sibling Autonomy Support and Goal Progress in Emerging Adulthood

Family Relations ◽

10.1111/fare.12562 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Élodie C. Audet ◽

Shelby L. Levine ◽

Anne C. Holding ◽

Richard Koestner ◽

Theodore A. Powers

Keyword(s):

Emerging Adulthood ◽

Autonomy Support ◽

Goal Progress

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