The Effect of Goal Progress Salience Cues in Effortful Consumer Domains: An Implicit Theory Perspective

Consumers are faced with a plethora of products and services that provide cues to mark progress (called goal progress salience or GPS cues). Several firms endeavor to provide indications of progress (e.g., e-book readers that provide information about the percentage of the e-book completed; video games that provide information about the skill a player has learned at different levels) with the assumption that consumers appreciate this information. The literature on goal progress has generally shown that providing progress cues tends to bolster performance and goal achievement (Cheema & Bagchi, 2011). However, contrasting research (e.g., Amir and Ariely 2008) has shown that progress cues could hinder goal pursuit and task performance. In this research, we suggest that the effects of GPS cues may not be uniform for all individuals and for all kinds of consumption domains. Specifically, we suggest and find that the consumption domains that are deemed demanding and require consumer effort are differentially impacted by the presence and type of such progress cues, contingent on whether consumers endorse an incremental-theory and focus on learning goals or endorse an entity theory and focus on the outcome.