Climbing the Wrong Ladder: The Mismatch between Consumers' Preference for Subgoal Sequences and Actual Goal Performance

When pursuing goals that involve subgoals of varying levels of difficulty, consumers prefer to follow a difficult-to-easy sequence when completing the subgoals because they believe that such a sequence renders the overall goal easier to achieve. However, consumers are actually more successful when they follow an easy-to-difficult sequence when completing subgoals. In seven studies, the authors present consistent evidence for this mismatch and explore the value of subgoals as an important boundary condition.

• 저널Journal of Marketing Research · 52(5) · 616–628
• 토픽Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics · General Decision Sciences
• DOI10.1509/jmr.13.0014
• 저자Liyin Jin, Qian Xu, Ying Zhang