Context
As shown by this article, money is a bone of contention for many couples, especially when it comes to joint savings. This is because couples make both joint and individual decisions – about finances, and in general. However, the pursuit of individual goals can sometimes affect the pursuit of shared goals: for instance, if one partner decides to indulge in expensive clothing, it may affect his/her capacity to contribute to joint savings, or, if one partner decides to go to the movies one evening, it may affect his/her ability to contribute to house chores on that day. Therefore, it is preferable that both partners keep their eyes on the prize so that joint goals can be reached. In an article published in 2021 in the Journal of Marketing Research, Nikolova and Nenkov investigate how achieving progress on a joint goal may affect the partners’ future behavior in terms of prioritizing individual or joint concerns.
Research questions
Previous research has already studied how making progress on a goal can affect individual behavior. Notably, it has shown that being close to one’s goal can either make people work harder to reach the goal, or favor goal-inconsistent behavior since the aim now seems so reachable. The same could be true for couples: once a joint objective is nearly reached, partners have a choice to continue efforts towards the joint goal or to favor personal ambitions. Nikolova and Nenkov propose that keeping up efforts towards a joint objective as a couple is dependent on two key variables:
– each partner’s relationship power, defined as ability of one partner to influence, control, or change the other and to make most of the decisions in the relationship: notably, a partner with a high relationship power often tend to take credit for the couple’s achievement,
– each partner’s self-concept, which captures all of the identities of a person, including their individual identity and their relational identities (for instance, their identity as partner): notably, previous research has proven that individuals strive to maintain an equilibrium between all the identities of their self-concept.
The authors ask the following research questions:
– When high progress has been made on a joint objective, do partners keep up their efforts towards the joint goal or do they favor personal ambitions?
– What is the role of relationship power and self-concept in the decision-making process?
– Are there ways to entice partners to keep their eyes on the prize?
Method
To answer these research questions, the authors first analyzed data from a couples’ money management mobile app to check the individual spending patterns of partners after making high or low progress on a joint goal. 394 users were polled. Then, they conducted a series of experiments:
– Study 1 tested the impact of relationship power on goal-consistent behavior. In the first part of the study (conducted on 267 participants), relationship power was manipulated by assigning each participant a role as team secretary (low relationship power) or team manager (high relationship power), while goal progress was manipulated by telling participants that they had reached a 75% or 90% competency level after completing a task, regardless of their real result. In the second part of the study (involving 621 married MTurk informants), relationship power was measured, and joint goal progress was manipulated by telling the participants they had reached 20% or 80% of their target savings amount.
– Study 2 (conducted on 836 MTurk participants) aimed at replicating the findings from study 1 and at investigating the role of a relational self-concept boost in the process by telling some of the participants that they were great relationship partners.
– Studies 3 and 4 explored ways to encourage partners to maintain their efforts on the pursuit of a joint goal, such as reminding participants to focus on their partners’ contribution rather than their own or heightening the importance of relational concerns.
Results
– Joint goal progress does not lead to the same subsequent patterns as individual goal progress. After making high progress on a joint goal, partners with higher relationship power are more likely to disengage from the joint goal to pursue their personal agenda, while partners with lower relationship power maintain their efforts towards the joint goal. For instance, after making high progress on joint saving goals the previous month, partners with high relationship power tend to splurge on “shopping and fun” personal expenses, while the “shopping and fun” personal expenses of partners with low relationship power do not significantly vary.
– When making significant progress on a joint goal, partners with a high relationship power take credit for the progress. In turn, they feel that they have been “good partners”, which boosts the relational identity in their self-concept. This prompts them to disengage from the joint goal and to pursue personal ambitions to try to satisfy the individual identity in their self-concept, thus restoring the balance between all identities within their self-concept.
– When making significant progress on a joint goal, partners with a low relationship power do not feel responsible for the couple’s achievement and do not experience the boost in the relational identity of the self-concept. Therefore, they maintain their efforts towards the joint objective.
– This research provides two ways of keeping partners with high relationship power on the joint goal pursuit track: reminding them of their partner’s contribution to the progress on their joint goal and heightening their relational concerns (in contrast with their individual concerns).
Why is this article relevant for researchers?
This article contributes to the literature about sequential choices, couple’s decisions, relationship power and self-concept. It is the first research to investigate couples’ sequential decisions after the experience of joint goal progress. It shows that the outcome of joint goal progress on individual decisions is different from the outcome of shared or individual goal progress. This research is particularly interesting since goal-(in)consistent behavior is no longer solely linked with the tendency to work harder when the goal is in sight or to indulge because the aim is reachable. It shows how relationship power and relational self-concept are at the core of individual decisions when it comes to couples. In other words: single consumers and consumers who are in committed relationships should be analyzed and treated differently. Moreover, the literature about relationship power has often highlighted the role of individuals with high relationship power, while this article sheds light on the instrumental role of partners with low relationship power, proving that the achievement of a joint goal may be credited to them rather than only to the decision-making abilities of partners with a high relationship power.
This paper opens avenues for future research. For instance, it shows that contrary to partners with low relationship power, partners with a high relationship power switch their focus from the joint goal to their personal ambitions, which could suggest that they are actually better at maintaining a balance between personal and individual concerns: is this really the case? And if so, how could low-relationship-power partners restore this balance?
Why is this article relevant for professionals?
The present findings can be useful for professionals from various fields proposing joint consumption products, such as financial services (savings, debts, etc), children’s education. This article provides them with insight into the partnership’s dynamics and the way that partners may adopt goal-(in)consistent behavior. Evaluating the relationship power of each partner can facilitate behavior predictions, and help managers implement product or communication policies. Moreover, this paper also gives clear guidelines about how high-relationship-power partners can be enticed into keeping their eyes on the prize, such as highlighting their counterpart’s role in the progress made or heightening relational concerns. For instance, this HDFC Life ad emphasizes a couple’s needs and concerns that might motivate both of them to contribute to a retirement plan, thus amplifying their relational concerns, as opposed to their individual concerns.
More broadly, the lesson to be drawn from this article is that single consumers should be analyzed and treated differently from consumers who are in a relationship. Understanding the behavioral pattern of low vs high-relationship-power partners can be useful for any professional targeting consumers who are in a relationship. For instance, some communications may surf on high-relationship-power partners’ natural tendency to indulge after making progress on a joint goal. For example, this Muffin Break ad shows the sacrifices made by a mother for her family and concludes by saying she deserves a Muffin Break, thus shifting her concerns from a relational to individual paradigm. Put differently, for a certain type of products, it seems that guilt-free communications for the occasional splurge could make some consumers focus on individual rather than joint goals.