The Role of a Vivid and Challenging Personal Vision in Goal Hierarchies

Abstract

This study examines personal vision and its role in human motivation. It examines the concept of personal vision within goal hierarchies, describes the elements that constitute goal hierarchies, and examines the effect of students' compelling personal vision on the quality of proximal goals. Asking participants to describe their expected or compelling personal vision did not influence the difficulty and vividness of such vision. Instead, individual differences overrode the manipulations with some students conceptualizing a more challenging and vivid personal vision compared with others. Students who naturally set a challenging and vivid personal vision also set more difficult and specific college goals. Students who conceptualized a vivid personal vision were more committed to their semester goals.