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The Mere Deadline Effect: Why More Time Might Sabotage Goal Pursuit

The Mere Deadline Effect: Why More Time Might Sabotage Goal Pursuit Contrary to the common belief that having more time facilitates goal pursuit by allowing for more flexibility and fewer restrictions, the current work argues that long deadlines may produce unintended detrimental consequences on goal pursuit. In particular, this research identifies a mere deadline effect, showing that longer versus shorter deadlines, once imposed, lead consumers to infer that the focal goal is more difficult, even when the deadline length results from incidental factors that cannot be meaningfully used to make any other diagnostic inferences about the task itself besides completion frame. Further, these difficulty inferences consequently lead consumers to commit more resources (e.g., time and money). Thus, while long incidental deadlines might be beneficial for essential yet often underestimated aspects of long-term well-being (e.g., when consumers exert more effort to save for college and plan for retirement), the unintended difficulty perception arising from deadline length will sometimes sabotage goal pursuit (e.g., when consumers commit more resources that are beyond their capability, and when elevated resource estimates lead to increased procrastination and higher likelihood of quitting). http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Consumer Research Oxford University Press

The Mere Deadline Effect: Why More Time Might Sabotage Goal Pursuit

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References (65)

Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Journal of Consumer Research, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com
ISSN
0093-5301
eISSN
1537-5277
DOI
10.1093/jcr/ucy030
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Contrary to the common belief that having more time facilitates goal pursuit by allowing for more flexibility and fewer restrictions, the current work argues that long deadlines may produce unintended detrimental consequences on goal pursuit. In particular, this research identifies a mere deadline effect, showing that longer versus shorter deadlines, once imposed, lead consumers to infer that the focal goal is more difficult, even when the deadline length results from incidental factors that cannot be meaningfully used to make any other diagnostic inferences about the task itself besides completion frame. Further, these difficulty inferences consequently lead consumers to commit more resources (e.g., time and money). Thus, while long incidental deadlines might be beneficial for essential yet often underestimated aspects of long-term well-being (e.g., when consumers exert more effort to save for college and plan for retirement), the unintended difficulty perception arising from deadline length will sometimes sabotage goal pursuit (e.g., when consumers commit more resources that are beyond their capability, and when elevated resource estimates lead to increased procrastination and higher likelihood of quitting).

Journal

Journal of Consumer Research – Oxford University Press

Published: Feb 1, 2019

Keywords: mere deadline effect; deadlines; goals; procrastination; inference making; time constraints and scarcity

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