The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior
研究发现，在新周、新月、新年、生日等时间地标之后，人们更可能开始节食、去健身房或承诺追求目标，这种“新起点效应”有助于克服意志力问题。
The popularity of New Year's resolutions suggests that people are more likely to tackle their goals immediately following salient temporal landmarks. If true, this little-researched phenomenon has the potential to help people overcome important willpower problems that often limit goal attainment. Across three archival field studies, we provide evidence of a “fresh start effect.” We show that Google searches for the term “diet” (Study 1), gym visits (Study 2), and commitments to pursue goals (Study 3) all increase following temporal landmarks (e.g., the outset of a new week, month, year, or semester; a birthday; a holiday). We propose that these landmarks demarcate the passage of time, creating many new mental accounting periods each year, which relegate past imperfections to a previous period, induce people to take a big-picture view of their lives, and thus motivate aspirational behaviors. Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1901 . This paper was accepted by Yuval Rottenstreich, judgment and decision making.