Personal goals and psychological growth: testing an intervention to enhance goal attainment and personality integration.

Full Abstract

We hypothesized that semester goal attainment provides a route to short-term psychological growth. In an attempt to enhance this process, we randomly assigned participants to either a goal-training program or to a control condition. Although there were no main effects of program participation on later goal attainment, important interactions were found. Consistent with a "prepared to benefit" model, participants already high in goal-based measures of personality integration perceived the program as most useful and benefited the most from the program in terms of goal attainment. As a result, they became even more integrated and also increased in their levels of psychosocial well-being and vitality. Implications for theories of short-term growth and positive change are discussed, as is the unanswered question of how to help less-integrated persons grow.

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Author information

Author/s: Sheldon, Kennon M (KM); Kasser, Tim (T); Smith, Kendra (K); Share, Tamara (T);

Affiliation: University of Missouri-Columbia, USA.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Clinical Trial; Journal Article; Randomized Controlled Trial

Journal: Journal of personality (J Pers), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Feb; vol 70 (issue 1) : pp 5-31

Dates: Created 2002/03/22; Completed 2002/09/20; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 11908535, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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