ATTITUDES AND SOCIAL COGNITION Climbing the Goal Ladder: How Upcoming Actions Increase Level of Aspiration Minjung Koo Sungkyunkwan University Ayelet Fishbach University of Chicago Pursuing a series of progressive (e.g., professional) goals that form a goal ladder often leads to a trade-off between moving up to a more advanced level and repeating the same goal level. This article investigates how monitoring one’s current goal in terms of remaining actions versus completed actions influences the desire to move up the goal ladder. The authors propose that a focus on remaining (vs. completed) actions increases the motivation to move up to a more advanced level, whereas the focus on completed (vs. remaining) actions increases the satisfaction derived from the present level. They find support for these predictions across several goal ladders, ranging from academic and professional ladders to simple, experimental tasks. They further find that individuals strategically attend to information about remaining (vs. completed) actions to prepare to move up the goal ladder. Keywords: goals, aspiration, commitment, progress People’s goals, whether they constitute central life objectives or mundane everyday pursuits, often follow a “goal ladder” in which each goal is a step toward another, more challenging goal. For example, people’s career paths often follow a goal ladder in which an entry-level position is a step toward a more advanced position in the organization. Even more mundane goals, such as playing a computer game, often include different levels in which a person can move up, for example, by advancing from Level 3 to Level 4. In addition, goal ladders characterize learning goals, such as when people move from a beginner to an intermediate level when they acquire a new skill. The goal ladder can be highly structured, for example, when moving up the military ranks (from private to corporal) or the academic ranks (from assistant to associate). However, at other times, goal ladders are less structured, for example, when people seek to move to a position with more challenges and responsibilities than their current one, sometimes without being aware of their desire to advance. Regardless of the specific features of the goal ladder, individuals face a dilemma between moving up to a more advanced level versus repeating the current level for their next pursuit. Choosing a more advanced level often requires the individual to invest more effort, yet it can offer certain benefits (e.g., greater interest). As such, we explore whether the way individuals monitor their current goal— either in terms of remaining actions or completed actions— influences their aspiration level for their next goal level. We examine, for example, whether the focus on remaining (vs. com- pleted) courses in college increases the desire to seek a postgrad- uate job and whether the focus on topics yet to be learned (vs. already learned) in a beginner’s language course increases the ultimate level of proficiency beginners aspire to achieve. We position our theory in previous goal research, which ex- plores the impact of discrepancies (i.e., remaining actions; e.g., Carver & Scheier, 1998; Higgins, 1987; Hull, 1932; Locke & Latham, 2002), as well as successful past pursuits (Bandura, 1991; Feather, 1982; Heckhausen, 1977) on motivation to pursue a focal goal. In departure from previous research, we compare these foci against each other and explore their relative impact on the choice of what to do once the focal goal is achieved. Building on research by Fishbach and colleagues (Fishbach, Dhar, & Zhang, 2006; Koo & Fishbach, 2008), we predict that an emphasis on remaining actions focuses individuals on making progress, leading to a desire to move up, whereas an emphasis on completed actions focuses individuals on their commitment to the current goal, leading to a desire to repeat the present goal level. In exploring these hypoth- eses, we shed new light on the classic problem of what determines people’s levels of aspiration (Dembo, 1931/1976; Kruglanski, 1975; Lewin, 1926; Lewin, Dembo, Festinger, & Sears, 1944; Locke & Latham, 1990). Expressing Commitment Versus Making Progress Two types of incentives exist for pursuing a goal. The first are incentives to engage in a goal, including the experience of enjoy- ment, involvement, or importance while pursuing a goal. The second are incentives to make progress on a goal and move up the goal ladder. For example, for a student pursuing an academic goal, the incentive can be based on the joy of learning or the pleasure of mastering a topic and moving up to a more advanced topic; for the person playing a computer game, the incentive can be based on the We thank Yaacov Trope for helpful discussions and insights. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Minjung Koo, Sungkyunkwan University, SKK Graduate School of Business, 53 Myungryun-dong 3-ga, Jongro-gu, Seoul, Korea 110-745, or Ayelet Fish- bach, The University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, 5807 South Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago IL 60637. E-mail: min.koo@skku.edu or ayelet.fishbach@Chicagobooth.edu Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2010, Vol. 99, No. 1, 1–13 © 2010 American Psychological Association 0022-3514/10/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0019443 1