New Year’s Resolutions: What does the literature say?

Ever wonder if someone has sat down and logically thought through a process to measure how effective New Year’s resolutions? Turns out, someone has!

Study with >1,000 participants over 1 year published in 2020

These researchers looked at what resolutions people make, their success rate and if you can support success with goal setting advice. There are other older and smaller studies, but this was the best quality study I was able to find.

People recruited

1,066 Swedish Adults (81% women, average 44 years old) from the general public, found via social media in Dec 2016.

Groups

Participants were split evenly into 1 of 3 groups:

1. No support on goal setting – these served as the controls for the experiment (or the baseline that the others would be measured against). They were followed up at the end of Jan and at the end of the year.
2. Some support on goal setting, presented as text on a website, which told them that social support can help to achieve goals. Participants had to name a specific person to support them over the year. They were followed up once a month and sent regular emails to support.
3. Extended support with setting and achieving goals, all the above, in addition to: information about setting SMART goals, formulating active goals (as opposed to avoidance goals) and setting interim goals (milestones). They were also sent emails on exercises regarding motivation, thought patterns, and negative spirals

Outcomes

Resolutions

The resolutions made (average resolutions per person was 1.8):

• 33% concerned physical health
• 20% weight loss
• 13% eating habits
• 9% personal growth
• 5% mental health/sleep
• 20% other (work, studies, tobacco habits etc)

Success rates

The participants self-rated their success from 0 to 100% with ≥70% being considered successful and ≤60% unsuccessful.

Those that received some support were the most successful. Surprisingly, those that received extended support were comparable to those that received no support.

As the extended support group had to make 6 interim goals, these were more opportunities to fail. Also, the type of goal set in those who received extended support are expected to be more specific than those who received some support. For example, on physical activity, I can imagine these to look like: Some support: Do more exercise – would be achieved if I felt I was more active. Extended support: exercise twice a week – would not be achieved unless those two sessions happened.

Alternatively…

The data are true and we are seeing a saturation effect. Perhaps receiving some support from a good friend is all that you need to achieve your goals.

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Source

Oscarsson M, Carlbring P, Andersson G, Rozental A. A large-scale experiment on New Year's resolutions: Approach-oriented goals are more successful than avoidance-oriented goals. PLoS One. 2020 Dec 9;15(12):e0234097. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0234097. PMID: 33296385; PMCID: PMC7725288.