The Nearly Winning Effect

Prior research on goal gradient theory has shown that one’s motivational drive associated with a reward intensifies with increasing advancement toward the reward (Hull 1983). These findings raise an interesting question—what would happen to this intensified motivational drive when one nearly wins a reward? To answer this question, we turn to an emerging body of research on motivation, which suggests that the motivational drive is more general in nature, such that once induced through an incidental cue, it could lead to a broad array of reward seeking behaviors (Van den Bergh, Dewitte and Warlop 2008; Wadhwa, Shiv and Nowlis 2008). Drawing upon these findings, we propose that the intensified but unsatiated motivational drive induced as a result of nearly winning a reward could enhance the desire to seek subsequent unrelated rewards. We term this effect, the “nearly winning” effect. We examine our nearly winning effect hypothesis in four studies, including a field study, and also rule out alternative accounts related to mood and arousal.