Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans.

When people encounter problems in translating their goals into action (e.g., failing to get started, becoming distracted, or falling into bad habits), they may strategically call on automatic processes in an attempt to secure goal attain-ment. This can be achieved by plans in the form of imple-mentation intentions that link anticipated critical situations to goal-directed responses ("Whenever situation x arises, I will initiate the goal-directed response y!"). Implementa-tion intentions delegate the control of goal-directed re-sponses to anticipated situational cues, which (when actu-ally encountered) elicit these responses automatically. A program of research demonstrates that implementation intentions further the attainment of goals, and it reveals the underlying processes. Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. —Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray G ood intentions have a bad reputation. People whoform New Year's resolutions earn at best a sym-pathetic smile when they announce their heroic intentions (e.g., exercising regularly, avoiding unhealthy foods). Though the audience may concede that such reso-lutions are made with good will (Oscar Wilde is less trusting), they doubt their effectiveness. This suspicion is deeply rooted. Folklore tells us that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." Do good intentions deserve this bad reputation? As the many empirical studies based on Ajzen's (1985) theory of planned behavior demonstrate, there is no reason to assume that good intentions have nil effects or even negative ef-fects on behavior. Quite to the contrary, strong intentions (e.g., "I strongly intend to do x") are reliably observed to be realized more often than weak intentions (see reviews by