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http://hdl.handle.net/10419/36231
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| Title: | | Motivational goal bracketing  |
| Authors: | | Koch, Alexander K. Nafziger, Julia |
| Issue Date: | | 2009 |
| Series/Report no.: | | IZA Discussion Papers 4471 |
| Abstract: | | It is a puzzle why people often evaluate consequences of choices separately (narrow bracketing) rather than jointly (broad bracketing). We study the hypothesis that a present-biased individual, who faces two tasks, may bracket his goals narrowly for motivational reasons. Goals motivate because they serve as reference points that make substandard performance psychologically painful. A broad goal allows high performance in one task to compensate for low performance in the other. This partially insures against the risk of falling short of ones' goal(s), but creates incentives to shirk in one of the tasks. Narrow goals have a stronger motivational force and thus can be optimal. In particular, if one task outcome becomes known before working on the second task, narrow bracketing is always optimal. |
| Subjects: | | Goals multiple tasks motivational bracketing self-control time inconsistency psychology |
| JEL: | | A12 C70 D91 |
| Persistent Identifier of the first edition: | | urn:nbn:de:101:1-20091015819 |
| Document Type: | | Working Paper |
| Appears in Collections: | | IZA Discussion Papers, Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit (IZA)
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