Reading this article made me think about a lot of goals that I have set for myself and begin to try to figure out where or who they really began with. Granted, I am a very goal oriented person, but I know many people have helped me on my way to achieving my goals throughout life.
My grandfather always said, "Something worth doing, is worth doing well." I have always strived to be my very best at everything I do. This is a perfect example of what was discussed in this article about how even memories of others that are important to us help us to achieve our goals. Even though my grandfather passed away over a decade ago, his memory still lives inside of me and helps shape the decisions that I make today.
Obviously I agree with the fact that others around us influence the way we are and that the goals that we have for ourselves are encouraged and discouraged by our interpersonal relationships all the time. Whether it is stopping smoking, starting college or being a great mom, others around me help me along the way to encourage me, motivate me and help me to be the best that I can be. In fact, without my interpersonal relationships I would not be as far as I am today.
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Some people are more motivated than others and this may be due to personality differences. The article review of studies, Interpersonal Influences on Self-Regulation, though suggests that a person can be motivated and more likely to realize their goals if and when a significant person in their life is somehow envolved. Just the thought of the significant person, a parent for instance, when working on a task can trigger goal-directed action. The quality of their relationship can either help to benefit or hinder their acheivement goals.
Other social factors can influence a person's ability to complete a task with success. High-maintenance interactions are particularly interesting I think. A person will use their energy in a (stressful) social situation which will lessen their ability to do as well on a task because their energy was depleted during the high-mainenance interaction. This reminds me of a spanish interview that was required in order to test out of the language requirement that I had to fulfill. My spanish is decent but I was really nervous about a 15-minute interview with a stranger and I struggled throughout it as a result. I passed but maybe if I did not waste my energy on trying to overcome my apprehension of interviews it would have gone better (and not have been so embarrassing).
This article urged me to think about my goals, who I look up to in terms of work ethic, and those in my life make me want to do more with my life. The article talked about "goal contagion" and used an example of reading a story that had a goal-seeking character, and how it cause harder work on a computer test. I though this was very accurate because there are times when I am very motivated to do well in school, so I will have a good career, and this is usually after I have spoken to someone in the field I am interested in who is doing well, or if I hear something about my career interests. I have relationships with many different kinds of people. Some are in college, pursuing their graduate degree, and others who have not taken any college courses at all. Sometimes I feel motivated to pursue my goals because I want to be at the same level as my friends that are in graduate school, and other times I see where I don't want to be and it causes me to work harder. I definitely agree with the article when it notes that relationships can positively and negatively effect goals. It would be interesting if the article said something about people that motivate us into pursuing goals by being examples of what we do not want to be. For example, if I have a friend working retail, that has long and hard hours, and gets paid very little. He has never been to college and dislikes his job very much, but does not feel he has many options because of his lack of education. Sometimes having conversations with him pushes me to work harder in school so I will not be in that same position.
People have different goals at different time in their life but what make up your mind?in another word, what made you set your goal or the way you monitor or achieve your goal?Grainne M. Fitzsimons and Eli J. Finkel in their article "interpersonal influences on self-regulation" suggested that our goal is mostly affected by the others. For example, you may set your goal to be a doctor just because your parents were doctor or maybe your life was once saved by a doctor, you think their job are meaningful and thus you want to be one of them, or maybe its simply that you got a good grade on biology and chemistry back in high school which your parents praise you and reinforces you to set your goal to be a doctor.
On the other hand, the article mention that people are more likely to achieve their goal if their romantic partner support and encourage them specific in goals that fall in some domains like academic, career, friendship and etc. It once again suggested social support is important for goal achievement. One thing I remember the most from the article was about social comparison. The article mentioned that social comparison make people compare themselves to the others in order to know their goal process. This theory suggested that people who do upward comparison with others will make themselves feel worse and less motivated and people who do downward comparisons make themselves feel better and more motivated to achieve their goal. However, this theory is not working on couple, instead, romantic partner tend to be higher motivated when their another half did well on this domain.
Lynn made a good point in class in answering why is the social comparison theory is not applying on romantic partners. I do agree with her point that the great work your romantic partner did make you feels good and thus motivated you. On top of this I believe the reason behind it is that the success of your romantic partner does not just make you feel good , instead you see the benefit of doing that he or she did and want to be as good as your romantic partner do.
The article by Fitzsimons and Finkel regarding interpersonal relationships attempts to understand the interpersonal processes that promote self-regulation in an appropriate manner. It is apparent that we are influenced by our mental representations of people, and thus we regulate our behavior in the face of others. We may form goals due to the goals of others, such as our parents. Instrumental others, such as our mothers, aid in the reinforcement of a certain behavior in order to attain a goal. Frequently, individuals engage in impression management in order to anticipate other goals.
It is interesting how others can facilitate us in attaining our goal, by either providing a positive or negative motivation. We often use the social comparison theory to self-regulate and either boost or undermine our abilities. It is interesting to understand whether we automatically form our goals based on others or if our goals are a result of intrinsic motivations. Research has illustrated that the elicitation of goals has definitely shaped a person's behavior outside of their consciousness. It would be interesting to know to what extent do our goals modify or form a person's behavior and whether the activation of a goal implies a definite change in behavior, depending on the type of goal.
It is evident that goal operation occurs in social contexts. Siblings may have similar goals due to living in the same household and being influenced by the same set of parents. With the chronic belief of support, there is a secure attachment. I am curious to know whether partner interventions would show a boost in meeting a goal or whether they would interfere with meeting a goal. The reinforcement benefit is critical, since a spouse or partner can frequently influence the other partner.
-Sarika Joshi
Fitzsimons and Finkel's article Interpersonal Influences on Self-Regulation is a literature review about goal and how interpersonal relationships effect how we set, monitor and achieve those goals. One of the important findings that was high-lighted in the review was closeness of the relationship and dependency. Individuals who had supportive partners and who in turn depend on their romantic partners had greater success at achieving their goals. In another experiment, students who were primed to think about their parents were more successful on academic tasks than control groups. The closer the students are to their parents and the more involved the parents are in the student's academic life had a profound impact on their success at the task.
One of the very last ideas to be discussed in the article was social comparison. At its simplest, it is just comparing one's success level with another person in the same field. Upward comparison is when the comparison is made with people are are more successful and downward comparison is with less successful people. As expected, if and when people upward compare themselves with a more successful person, their motivation decreases while the opposite happens with downward comparison. An interesting note is that the effects are virtually non-existent in romantic relationships; participants even reported increase motivation.
Since there was little written about social comparison in the review, it would be interesting to see how it effects siblings. Is there a truth to the term "sibling rivalry"? Since the effects were negated with romantic partners, how might they manifest in sibling relationships? Personally, I think the effects of social comparison would be doubled or rather, it would "hit harder" in sibling relationships. I'm thinking that it has to do with sharing the same "resources"--same family, same friends. Basically the same interpersonal relations. It would be interesting to see how motivation fluctuate between siblings who are pursuing the same field.
The article interpersonal influence on self-regulations studies how intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships affect goals. Intrapersonal goal is the beliefs or qualities about oneself. The article gives an example of a pre-medical student and describes the intrapersonal as being able to focus and delay gratification. Interpersonal is how friends and family members others around effect you. The researchers found that reminding people of their significant other helped people achieve their goals that were associated with that person. The people only improved on a task when the participant believed that their parents or significant other cared about their achievement. However if a partner was considered controlling the participant would try and resist the control of the partner and perform worse. The researchers also looked at if participants were affected by being modest to either a stranger or a friend. They found that people that had to be modest to a stranger preformed worse on a math test. This research show that the stranger interaction was more depleting. They also tested people using different races. A black person and a white person were to discuss a racially sensitive topic and they found that white participants were did worse on the task indicating more depletion.
I was happy to read "Individuals who's romantic partners strongly supports or encourages their goal...are significantly more likely to achieve those goals over time (p 103)"
I am happy to hear this considering how much work I have ahead of me this upcoming year. I am finishing my psychology degree and simultaneously getting my paramedic license. I have been apprehensive about this upcoming year however my girlfriend has continually supported me and encouraged me that I can accomplish my goals. I am glad that this research supports her supporting me. I know I can accomplish both!
While reading this article I found myself relating most of everything they wrote to my own life. The idea that you are going to associate certain goals with certain people and you will do better when you have the support of those people I found very interesting. I thought about one of my best friend. We share many academic and work out goals, when I think about my own goals I associate those with her and my success. My grandma is also some that I associate with my college success and going to school. She is one of my biggest supporters with everything I do.
My first year of college was by far one of the hardest years of my life. I was 4.0 student in high school, played sports, volunteered, wanted to conquer the world, but when I struggled through my first semester it didn't empower me to do better next time, it definitely brought me down and I continued to be unsuccessful. I have found that I am more stressful and anxious than I ever have been in my life and just beginning to find solutions and how much it is really impacting not only my health, but my relationships and the way I am living my life. This article brought up many important aspects of goals and relationships and how the two coincide.
I love that just thinking about others that are close to us makes us want to pursue our goals that we associate with that person. That is relevant for most people and reminds me of my relationship with my mom. She wants me to succeed in school so badly and being around her makes me want to get to my school work and also reminds me of how far I have come in school. She reminds me of how hard I worked to get into graduate school and that I have the ability to get through it.
The article said that there is evidence that being around more successful people makes us feel worse about ourselves. I think we have all felt like this at one point in our lives. I have an issue of perpetually comparing myself and my abilities to others, which has lead to some issues in my life. My friend and I have been going to school for awhile together and we both had a dream of getting into graduate school. Both of us wanted to get into a Psy D program. I decided that I was not ready for a doctorate program and did not take the GRE. However, I was doing research and volunteering and working very hard to go into the masters of social work program. She did not do much outside work and barely did the minimum. She ended up getting into the doctorate program and it makes my accomplishments feel very small whenever I am around her.
I also feel the reverse when I am around some people at work who graduated in the same major and got stuck in the restaurant industry. Makes me feel a little better knowing I am trying to so somewhere with my major.
Interpersonal relationships can regulate many things in our lives. Fitzsimons and Finkle's paper examined the effect that our relationships can have on our performance and goal achievement. One of the interesting things that they found was that if you looked at a picture of your mother smiling you'd perform better on a task. Another interesting finding was that you are better in achieving personal growth if your partner treats you as if you already poses those qualities.
After hearing about these findings I can definitely relate to having support from your mother. My mom is probably my biggest fan. She supports me so much. I have a tendency to be really hard on myself and my mom is always there to remind me I can make it through or that im doing fine. Whenever im disappointed in myself or a grade she reminds me of how hard i tried and tells me that she is proud of me as long as I am doing my best. This kind of support makes me want to continue when i feel like quitting. I can see how thinking that someone believes you have qualities that you desire can make it easier to reach those goals but I'm wondering how much of it is attributed to self belief? I think you can only accomplish things when you believe that you are able to do them. Sure having other's believe in you helps but by how much?
