A large-scale experiment on New Year's resolutions: Approach-oriented goals are more successful than avoidance-oriented goals
Oscarsson, Carlbring, Andersson and Rozental randomised 1,066 Swedish-speaking adults, 1,062 analysed, to a control, a some-support or an extended-support condition. Participants wrote their own resolutions, coded into fifteen categories. At the one-year follow-up 55 per cent of respondents said they were still successful. Approach-oriented resolutions were reported as successful more often than avoidance-oriented ones (58.9 per cent against 47.1 per cent, a small effect), and about 64.5 per cent framed their main resolution as an approach goal. The some-support group, which named a supporter and received information on social support, monthly follow-ups and one coping email, had the highest modelled success (62.3 per cent against 55.9 for the control and 52.5 for extended support). The extended condition added SMART goal-setting, interim goals and three more emails and did not outperform the control; the authors suggest extra goal-setting content may have made success harder to feel and that support effects may saturate. Success is self-reported.
Oscarsson, Carlbring, Andersson and Rozental randomised 1,066 Swedish-speaking adults, 1,062 analysed, to a control, a some-support or an extended-support condition. Participants wrote their own resolutions, coded into fifteen categories. At the one-year follow-up 55 per cent of respondents said they were still successful. Approach-oriented resolutions were reported as successful more often than avoidance-oriented ones (58.9 per cent against 47.1 per cent, a small effect), and about 64.5 per cent framed their main resolution as an approach goal. The some-support group, which named a supporter and received information on social support, monthly follow-ups and one coping email, had the highest modelled success (62.3 per cent against 55.9 for the control and 52.5 for extended support). The extended condition added SMART goal-setting, interim goals and three more emails and did not outperform the control; the authors suggest extra goal-setting content may have made success harder to feel and that support effects may saturate. Success is self-reported.
Written from the full text, PubMed Central (PMC7725288), 2026-11-02; citation metadata checked against the journal record.
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Oscarsson, M., Carlbring, P., Andersson, G., & Rozental, A. (2020). A large-scale experiment on New Year's resolutions: Approach-oriented goals are more successful than avoidance-oriented goals. PLoS ONE, 15(12), e0234097. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0234097 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234097