Compromise Effect In Goal Pursuit

Everyone is a goal pursuer.This study followed the idea of "Nudge" and aimed to help people adhere to long-term goals and reduce goal-deviating actions through classical behavioral decision-making effects(compromise effect).The compromise effect refers to the phenomenon that the selected rate rises when an alternative becomes the "compromise" in the choice set.Through three experiments,this study revealed the compromise effect in the goal-pursuit situation,and discussed its mechanism based on value change theory.In the context of career choice,experiment 1 took career development as the long-term goal,and took the learning opportunities and starting salary provided by the company as the option dimension to examine whether adding a new extreme option to the goal-directed side or goal-deviating side can change the preference of the decision maker for the original goal-directed and goal-deviating options,resulting in a compromise effect.The results showed that a compromise effect occurred when an extreme goal-directed option with a long-term outcome is better and the short-term outcome is worse was added to the goal-directed side.However,the experiment did not find a significant compromise effect on the goal-deviating side,that was,adding an extreme goal-deviating option with a long-term outcome is worse and the short-term outcome is better did not significantly improve the possibility of the decision-maker selecting the original goal-deviating option.In the context of restaurant selection,experiment 2 took health as the long-term goal and took restaurant hygiene and food taste as the option and the compromise effect of the goal-directed side was repeated.At the same time,the evaluation results of the option characteristics showed that after adding the extreme goal-directed option,the short-term outcome value of the original goal-directed option was significantly improved while the long-term outcome value was significantly decreased.By the meantime,the long-term outcome and the short-term outcome value of the original goal-deviating option were not significantly changed.This result was in line with the prediction of expected theory and range-frequency theory.In addition,it was also found that the difference between the negative characteristic value of the original goal-directed option and the negative characteristic value of the goal-deviating option completely mediated the compromise effect on the goal-directed side.This result is consistent with the assumption of the negative attributes impact of the image theory on decision-making.Based on Experiment 2,Experiment 3 adjusted the positive and negative attributes of the goal-directed option and the goal-deviating option more neutral(closer to attribute-balance point).It was found that the compromise effect disappeared.The value evaluation results showed that the adjustment did not affect people’s evaluation of the value of the option attributes,but it affected the final decision result.In summary,this study proposed the possibility that using compromise effect to promote people choose goal-directed action,and explored its mechanism based on value change theory.These works broke the limitations of previous interpretations of compromise effects and contributed to the construction of general theory.In addition,the study for the first time examined the impact of compromise effects on goal-directed action and goal-deviating action choices in the context of goal pursuit,enriching the theoretical outcomes of goal pursuit behavior.