Goal orientations and the search for confirmatory affect

People differ with respect to their beliefs about the consequences of attaining goals. Some people (linkers) believe that attaining certain goals will make them happy, whereas others (nonlinkers) see their happiness as more contingent upon the inherent quality of their actions than upon the outcomes of those actions. Because of the importance linkers place on goal attainment, linkers should be likely to seek information indicative of their progress toward their goals. Because of the importance nonlinkers place on enjoyment, nonlinkers should be likely to seek information indicative of the pleasurableness of their current task. Because negative affect can signal a lack of goal progress, whereas positive affect can signal task enjoyment, linkers may place more weight on their negative than their positive affect, whereas nonlinkers may do the opposite. Consistent with these hypotheses, the results of this study showed that linkers reported more negative affect when exposed to sad videos than when exposed to happy videos but did not report different amounts of positive affect. Nonlinkers, on the other hand, reported more positive affect when exposed to happy videos than when exposed to sad videos but did not report different amounts of negative affect. The implications of this pattern for a number of theoretical perspectives on goals and affect are discussed.