Proximal goals plus feedback, not distant goals alone, drive behavior change.

Evidence

Wishful thinking alone does not beget behavior change. Turning a vision into reality requires adopting progressive, short-term goals that provide guides, strategies, and motivators in the here and now. Goals without reliable feedback on progress have little or no effect (Bandura, 1991a). During a hot New Jersey summer, families adopted a goal of reducing their energy use by 20% (Becker, 1978). Half the group received feedback every two days on the amount of energy they used; the other half received no feedback on their energy use. Families that received performance feedback significantly reduced their energy use. In contrast, families that did not receive performance feedback achieved no change. Timely feedback identifies the corrective adjustments required to ensure continuous progress. Failure to adopt explicit goals with feedback on progress usually is the weakest link in change programs. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2944

Categorization

• XREF: The goal-feedback mechanism parallels Milgrom’s insight that institutions mainly restore information — here too, what makes goals effective is feedback (information about progress), not the goal itself.
• SEED: The finding that designers of behavior-change programs ignore social-science knowledge about goal-feedback loops supports an article contrasting wishful climate pledges with known effective mechanisms.