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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 20, No. 6, 664-675 (1994)
DOI: 10.1177/0146167294206005

Personal Accounts of Successful Versus Failed Attempts at Life Change

Todd F. Heatherton

Dartmouth College, heatherton{at}dartmouth.edu

Patricia A. Nichols

Harvard University

Subjects (N = 119) wrote stories about successful or failed life change experiences. Stories reporting successful change attempts were more likely than stories reporting failed attempts to mention intense emotional experiences, external threats, and focal events that often culminated in crystallizations of discontent. These events were related to reevaluations of goals and life meaning and increased motivation to change. Social support, attributions of internal control, blaming external events for failure, and the development of a new sense of identity that incorporated the changed behavior were strongly associated with reports of successful change. Failure narratives were more likely than success narratives to describe change in terms of willpower and to indicate an active participation in maintaining the status quo. These results provide a glimpse at the phenomenology of life change attempts.


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