Conscientiousness,trait self-control,and neuroticism predict individual differences in the variability of goal dimensions

When pursuing personal goals, individuals may experience fluctuations in goal-related dimensions like commitment and enjoyment. We present an approach to describe, analyze, and explain such within-person variability. In Part I, we determined to which extent within-person variability over time contributes to the total variability in goal dimensions, including between-person and between-goal variability. We observed strongest variability between goals, followed by variability over time, and between persons. In Part II, we estimated the within-person variability for each goal dimension using the indices dispersion (individual standard deviation), instability (root of squared successive differences), and inertia (autoregressive parameter). Dispersion was above-average for goal facilitation and progress and below-average for external motivation, value, and demand. Instability was above-average for facilitation and progress and below-average for commitment and demand. Inertia was above-average for facilitation and below-average for progress. Highlighting the relevance of self-regulatory competencies, we found that, when excluding outliers with extremely high variability, people with higher trait self-control, higher conscientiousness, and lower neuroticism showed lower variability. Both higher levels of trait self-control and conscientiousness predicted lower instability and higher inertia of goal dimensions. Conversely, higher neuroticism predicted higher dispersion and instability. We discuss these findings in the context of the Cybernetic Big Five Theory.

Plain language summary

Many people pursue personal goals like exercising more or saving more money. The term “goal dimensions” captures differences in how people think and feel about their goals, for example in how much they enjoy their pursuit. Goal dimensions can vary on three levels: First, they can vary between people, for example if some people generally perceive pursuing goals as more fun than other people. Second, goal dimensions can vary between goals, for example if some goals are more fun to pursue than other goals. Third, goal dimensions can vary between different time points. This is the case if sometimes the same goal is more fun to pursue than at other times. In Part I of the article, we report how we found out that for most goal dimensions (e.g., enjoyment, commitment, and demand) most of the variation comes from differences between goals, followed by differences between different points in time, followed by differences between people. This means that goals differ more from other goals than there is variation within a goal over time or than people differ from each other in how they think and feel about their goals. In Part II, we wanted to explain why some people show more variation in how they think and feel about their goals than other people. To investigate this, we calculated different measures (dispersion, instability, and inertia) that can describe how much variation there is in a goal dimension within a goal from time to time. People who are more competent in pursuing goals, as shown by their higher levels of self-control and conscientiousness showed lower levels of instability and higher levels of inertia. People with higher neuroticism showed higher levels of dispersion and instability. These results support that there are meaningful differences with regard to the stability in how people think and feel about their goals and that low variability could be beneficial for goal pursuit.