Research has found that watching others pursue their goals can influence one's own motivation. Goal contagion occurs when people observe someone else working towards a goal and then adopt and pursue that goal themselves (Aarts, Gollwitzer, & Hassin, 2004). For example, participants who watched a video of one character helping another were more willing to help the researchers by filling out an extra questionnaire, compared to those who watched a video that did not show any helping (Dik & Aarts, 2007). Vicarious goal satiation can also occur, whereby people observe someone else completing a goal and then put less effort into that goal (McCulloch, Fitzsimons, Chua, & Albarracn, 2011). For example, participants who watched a video of someone completing an anagram task subsequently performed worse on an anagram task, compared to those who watched a video that did not show goal completion (McCulloch et al., 2011). Thus, people can "catch" the motivation that occurs during the course of goal pursuit as well as the relaxation of effort that occurs when a goal has been achieved.

Researchers have argued that viewing the completion of a "have-to" (work) goal can shift a person's orientation towards "want-to" (leisure) goals (Tobin, Greenaway, McCulloch, & Crittall, 2015), as people generally try to maintain a balance between work and leisure (Inzlicht, Schmeichel, & Macrae, 2014). In support of this idea, Tobin et al. (2015) found that reading about a student completing an academic goal led to poorer performance on an academic task and more interest in non-academic activities. However, it has not yet been tested whether observing completion of a "want-to" goal can increase motivation for "have-to" goals. If people are motivated to balance these goals, this should also occur.

To test this idea, a researcher randomly assigned participants to read one of three stories. In the leisure-incomplete condition, participants read a story about a person who was planning a holiday.In the leisure-complete condition, participants read a story about a person who went on a holiday and then returned. In the control condition, participants read an unrelated story. Then, participants were asked to write an academic essay on an assigned topic. Coders who were blind to condition then rated the quality of these essays on a scale of 1 (poor) to 9 (excellent). Higher scores indicate greater engagement with a work goa

The researcher predicted that there would be a significant effect of condition on essay quality. Specifically, it was predicted that those in the leisure-complete condition would write better quality essays than those in the other two conditions combined, as they would have experienced vicarious satiation of a leisure goal and would more fully engage with a work goal (the academic essay). Furthermore, it was predicted that those in the leisure-incomplete condition would write poorer essays than those in the control condition, as they would have experienced contagion of the leisure goal, and would not want to engage in a work goal (the academic essay)

1. What is the independent variables

2. What is the dependent variable

3. What is the hypothesis

4. Null hypothesis