Evaluating Life Reflection Techniques to Help People Set Better Value-Driven Life Goals

2021

Conference Paper

re

We tested two reflection techniques derived from Acceptance Commitment Therapy for helping people set life goals that are self-determined, communal, and future-minded. Participants were assigned randomly to control, Eulogy, or the Valued Living Questionnaire (VLQ) conditions. Eulogy participants envisioned what they wanted people to say about them at their funeral. In VLQ, participants rated the importance of life domains and how consistent their behavior has recently been with the importance assigned to each domain. Participants then set a life goal, rated it for self-determination, and indicated its time horizon and life domain. Despite only requiring internal reflection, Eulogy was particularly effective for generating self-determined goals that were interpersonal and future-minded. The Eulogy exercise may be a useful and important building block for inspiring the setting and effective pursuit of goals that are simultaneously self-determined, communal, and future-minded. Future research will examine its efficacy in changing experienced well-being and enacted well-doing.

@conference{Prentice2021Evaluating,
  title = {Evaluating Life Reflection Techniques to Help People Set Better Value-Driven Life Goals},
  author = {Prentice, Mike and González Cruz, Hernán and Lieder, Falk},
  booktitle = {13th Annual Conference of the Society for the Science of Motivation},
  publisher = {Society for the Science of Motivation},
  month = may,
  year = {2021},
  doi = {},
  month_numeric = {5}
}