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The pursuit of multiple goals
Author(s) -
Kung Franki Y.H.,
Scholer Abigail A.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
social and personality psychology compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.699
H-Index - 53
ISSN - 1751-9004
DOI - 10.1111/spc3.12509
Subject(s) - goal pursuit , psychology , human multitasking , dual (grammatical number) , social psychology , cognitive psychology , art , literature
Juggling multiple goals is an inescapable reality of human life. Over the past two decades, the study of the nature of multiple (vs. single) goals has emerged to become an influential topic. To facilitate the understanding of the current state of the literature, this article presents an overview of the study of multiple goals. It first addresses the nature and impact of dual‐goal relations and reviews strategies people use to manage goal conflict (i.e., choosing, multitasking, and prioritizing). It then examines ways to conceptualize the relations among a collection of goals (i.e., goal structure), highlights emerging research in this area, and discusses factors that contribute to optimizing the pursuit of multiple goals. Throughout, the review highlights knowledge gaps and the need for future research to study subjective experiences in managing multiple goals.