Close relationships and acting for self-set goals

The study addressed the influence of a close relationship with a partner. The hypothesis that stronger interpersonal bonds (partner's support, cohesiveness, emotional ties) lead a goal pursuer to expand greater effort and to feel greater satisfaction in working toward self‐set goal was tested. The data were collected from 200 Ss involved in a close relationship by means of a Goal Questionnaire referring to goal properties (importance, expectancy, conflict), to action dimensions (effort, persistence, satisfaction) and to interpersonal relations between a goal pursuer and his partner (support, dependence, emotional control). The data analysis (ANOVA) revealed that the high support (vs. low) was significantly related to greater effort, persistence and satisfaction. Also high emotional control was related to higher persistence and high dependence resulted in stronger satisfaction from goal‐related activity. The path analysis showed that partner's support influences the goal‐related activity in two ways, directly through enhancing persistence and satisfaction and indirectly by increasing individual's expectancy of successful goal attainment.