Do backup plans impact adolescent goal pursuit? Initial experimental evidence from two studies

• In Event: Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Topic - Social, Emotional, Personality

Abstract

People play active roles in their development by setting and striving for goals. To address the uncertainty of actually achieving their goals, people develop backup plans (BUPs), defined as alternative means to achieve a goal that are intentionally developed but are not initially used (REMOVED FOR REVIEW). However, BUPs bring about unintended costs that can jeopardize goal pursuit. For example, investing more in developing in a BUP was associated with increased BUP use and lower goal performance in an adult sample (REMOVED FOR REVIEW). Might highly investing in BUPs also jeopardize adolescents’ goal pursuits?

The developmental and contextual changes in adolescence make self-regulatory skills (including goal pursuit) critical (REMOVED FOR REVIEW). Given the potential adverse effects of BUPs, a key developmental task for adolescents may be learning to develop and use BUPs adaptively. However, the few existing studies on BUPs in adolescence only examined whether youth developed BUPs or not (Larson & Angus, 2011). Thus, it is important to investigate the boundary conditions for adaptive BUP use among adolescents.

We hypothesize that adaptive backup plan use for adolescents is similar to adaptive backup plan use for adults: greater investment in BUPs indirectly reduces goal performance by increasing BUP use. To test this hypothesis, we use two experimental originally used to assess adults’ BUP behaviors across two domains: motor and cognitive skills. Study 1 collected data from 191 youth in a Midwestern US state (see Table 1). We adapted a motor-skills task (REMOVED FOR REVIEW) that involves accurately throwing either a Plan A or BUP ball into a bucket 3 meters away. In the “practice” phase, participants allocated five practice throws across the two balls. In the “trial” phase, participants throw 10 balls, with the first shot being the Plan A ball. Measures include demographics, BUP investment (number of BUP balls used in practice), BUP use (whether or not they used BUP balls), and goal performance (total score). Results for are found in Figure 1. Our hypothesis was supported; more BUP investment was related to more BUP use, and more BUP use was related to lower goal performance, and the indirect effect of BUP investment on performance through BUP use was significant.

Building on study 1, study 2 investigates the role of perceived backup plan instrumentality in a cognitive skills task. Data collection is ongoing, sampling youth online (target sample N=200). We will adapt a simulated negotiation task that assesses the practical costs of developing BUPs (REMOVED FOR REVIEW). The task has three phases: a) participants review and rate the instrumentality of three plans they could use to negotiate, b) participants read pieces of information and allocate them to one plan (Plan A approach) or multiple plans (BUP approach), and c) participants choose a plan, answer informational questions on that plan, and are informed whether they chose the correct answer.
Implications and future directions will be discussed. In sum, we provide initial evidence on the direct and indirect effects of BUP investment on adolescent goal performance.

Authors

• Bethany Hoff, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Presenting Author

• Madison Sewell, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author

• Chris Napolitano, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author