Verena Michalski

Verena Michalski

Verena Michalski is a researcher and the third author of Gollwitzer, Sheeran, Michalski and Seifert, 2009, in Psychological Science, the paper reporting that identity-related intentions noticed by other people were subsequently acted on less intensively than intentions that went unnoticed. She has a page here because the paper is cited here and its authors are named in full.

Who they are

This page is short because the record is, and it does not pad.

Michalski is named in the vault as a co-author on the 2009 intentions studies, and no biographical claim is made beyond that role. Nothing else could be confirmed: she appears as a Konstanz co-author on the 2009 paper, with no faculty page, no Scholar profile and no account that could be tied to this particular researcher rather than to one of the many people sharing the name. That is recorded as not found rather than as anything else.

The paper itself is worth stating carefully, because its popular reading overreaches. Four experiments, run in the field over a week and in the laboratory, found that when an identity-related intention was noticed by another person, the intender subsequently pursued it less intensively than when it went unnoticed. The effect held among participants with strong commitment to the identity goal and not among those with weak commitment. The theoretical frame is self-completion theory, from Wicklund and Gollwitzer in 1982: people compensate for shortfalls in a valued identity by acquiring and displaying substitutable symbols of it, and having the intention noticed can serve as one of those symbols.

The popular version of this, that announcing any goal reduces follow-through, is not what the study found. The effect is specific to identity goals and to committed participants, and other work on public commitment finds the opposite for goals that are not identity-related. The samples were modest and no large preregistered direct replication was located. Real support with a thin replication base, which is why the concept sits at mixed.

Key papers

Gollwitzer, P. M., Sheeran, P., Michalski, V., & Seifert, A. E. (2009). "When intentions go public: Does social reality widen the intention-behavior gap?" Psychological Science, 20(5), 612-618. Four experiments; identity-related intentions noticed by others were acted on less intensively than those that were ignored, in the field over one week and in the laboratory, among participants with strong but not weak commitment to the identity goal. Peter Gollwitzer is first author; Michalski is third. Read in abstract only in this vault.

The theory it belongs to:

Wicklund, R. A., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (1982). Symbolic Self-Completion. Erlbaum. The foundational statement of self-completion theory.

The vault records no other publication of hers, and this page lists none.

Key ideas

Being noticed can substitute for doing. That is the self-completion reading of the 2009 result, and the symbol stands in for the progress.

It is specific, and the popular version is not. The effect was found for identity-related goals among committed participants, not for goals in general.

Other work on public commitment finds the opposite for non-identity goals, which is why the sweeping version does not survive.

Real support with a thin replication base. Modest samples, four experiments, and no large preregistered direct replication located.

Sources

  1. Gollwitzer, P. M., Sheeran, P., Michalski, V., & Seifert, A. E. (2009). "When intentions go public: Does social reality widen the intention-behavior gap?" Psychological Science, 20(5), 612-618. Abstract only.
  2. Wicklund, R. A., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (1982). Symbolic Self-Completion. Erlbaum.
  3. Vault note: [[Verena Michalski]], which records that she is named as a co-author and that no claim is made beyond that role, and that nothing further could be confirmed.