Want to Achieve Your Biggest Long-Term Goals? Science Says Avoid the Dreaded Negative Lumping Effect
Imagine you want to increase sales by 70 percent this quarter. Big jump, sure, but you think you can do it. Instead, you finish the quarter up 67 percent.
How do you feel? According to research recently published in Psychological Science, you definitely feel disappointed.
Worse, you’re a lot less likely to work to match — much less increase — those results next quarter.
Even though a 67 percent increase was a huge gain in sales and revenue.
The reason? We tend to think of progress that doesn’t reach our expectations — no matter how significant that progress may have been — as total failure. Psychologists call that the negative lumping effect, which dismisses achievement when it falls short of categorical reform — despite distinctions in improvement.
…
Read the whole story (subscription may be required): Inc.
APS regularly opens certain online articles for discussion on our website. Effective February 2021, you must be a logged-in APS member to post comments. By posting a comment, you agree to our Community Guidelines and the display of your profile information, including your name and affiliation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations present in article comments are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of APS or the article’s author. For more information, please see our Community Guidelines.
Please login with your APS account to comment.