A hallmark of being human is the ability to self-regulate one’s behavior to achieve important goals that are thought to bring about happiness.  In one line of research in this area, we suggest that people’s lay beliefs about the nature of happiness — about whether happiness is cumulative versus fleeting — may play a unique role in shaping motivation and well-being.

We found that individuals differ in the degree to which they endorse beliefs related to Delaying Happiness (DH) vs. Living in the Moment (LM). Across a series of studies, people’s beliefs about DH versus LM uniquely predicted how they spent their time; their affective forecasts related to goal pursuit; decision-making, well-being, and daily experiences related to these outcomes (Park, Fujita, Naragon-Gainey, Radsvick, Jung, Xia, Ward, Paravati, Weng, Italiano, & Valvo, 2023). Currently we are examining how ecological variables in the environment affects people’s lay beliefs of happiness, goal pursuits, and well-being.

In another line of research, we study how lay beliefs about the malleability of motivation affects feedback-giving. For example, focusing on the academic context, we found instructors in STEM (vs. Humanities) courses are less likely to believe that giving feedback–especially positive feedback–influences students’ motivation  (Park, Scholer, & Koefler, in progress). Indeed, STEM instructors are less likely to give positive feedback in their courses than are Humanities instructors, even though positive feedback has been shown to be beneficial for students (Park, Ward, Moore-Russo et al., in press).