The impact of associative strength on performance in goal pursuit

The present research explored the hypothesis that strengthened attainment means–goal association leads to enhanced performance in goal pursuit. We hypothesize that because of the instrumental nature of means–goal association, strengthened associative strength leads to greater instrumentality expectancy of the means, which elicits greater motivation in the pursuit and hence better actual performance. We demonstrated in four studies that when the means is believed to facilitate goal attainment, a strong (vs. weak) means–goal association leads to greater performance in goal pursuit. Conversely, when the means is perceived to undermine goal attainment, a strong (vs. weak) association results in worse performance in goal pursuit.

Research highlights► We explored the hypothesis that the strength of attainment means-goal association influences goal performance. ► We found that stronger associative strength leads to better performance only when the means is perceived to be facilitative. ► We further found that the perceived instrumentality of the attainment means mediates the effect.