We Succeeded Together, Now What: Relationship Power and Sequential Decisions in Couples’ Joint Goal Pursuits

Research has demonstrated that after making high goal progress, consumers feel liberated to engage in goal-inconsistent behaviors. But what happens after consumers make high progress in the context of joint goal pursuit? The authors examine how jointly made progress toward a joint goal pursued by couples affects subsequent individually made goal-relevant decisions. Across five experiments with both lab-created couples and married participants and financial data from a couples’ money management mobile app, the authors show that after making high progress on a joint goal (vs. low or no progress), partners with higher relationship power are more likely to disengage from the joint goal to pursue personal concerns (e.g., indulge themselves, pursue individual goals), whereas partners with lower relationship power do not disengage from the joint goal and continue engaging in goal-consistent actions that maintain its pursuit. The authors elucidate the underlying mechanism, providing evidence that the joint goal progress boosts the relational self-concept of high- (but not low-) relationship-power partners, and this drives the effects. Importantly, they demonstrate the effectiveness of two theory-grounded and easily implementable interventions that promote goal-consistent behaviors among high-relationship-power consumers in the context of joint savings goals.