GOAL-SETTING AS A STRATEGY FOR HEALTH BEHAVIOR-CHANGE

This article discusses the beneficial effects of setting goals in heal th behavior change and maintenance interventions. Goal setting theory predicts that, under certain conditions, setting specific difficult go als leads to higher performance when compared with no goals or vague, nonquantitative goals, such as ''do your best.'' In contrast to the gr aduated, easy goals often set in health behavior change programs, goal setting theory asserts a positive linear relationship between degree of goal difficulty and level of performance. Research on goal setting has typically been conducted in organizational and laboratory settings . Although goal setting procedures are used in many health behavior ch ange programs, they rarely have been the focus of systematic research. Therefore, many research questions still need to be answered regardin g goal setting in the context of health behavior change. Finally, init ial recommendations for the successful integration of goal setting the ory in health behavior change programs are offered.