The ‘Ostrich Effect’ of Aspirational Goals

Aim high, but don’t bury your head when feedback comes in

Organizations routinely encourage employees to aim higher. Salespeople are given ambitious quotas, athletes are urged to beat their personal bests, and students are challenged to reach beyond their past performance. The prevailing assumption is simple: Setting high goals motivates people to work harder and perform better, and a large body of research demonstrates that this is generally true.

My research suggests a more complicated answer. Aspirational goals can motivate people. But they can also cause people to avoid information that would help them succeed.

My co-author and I describe this as a motivational paradox. When people adopt an ambitious goal, falling short feels like a loss. That possibility can motivate them to exert greater effort. But it can also make feedback more threatening. Rather than risk learning that they are behind, people may stop checking their progress — much like investors who avoid looking at their portfolios when the market falls or patients who postpone medical tests because they fear receiving bad news. This “ostrich effect” can prevent people from making timely adjustments and undermine some of the motivational benefit of the goal.

We first developed a theoretical model explaining when these opposing forces are likely to emerge. We then tested the idea through a field experiment involving more than 400 salespeople across 100 retail stores in Sweden. Some salespeople received text messages containing personalized goals set slightly above their usual performance. The messages increased sales, particularly among lower-performing employees. At the same time, some of these employees became less likely to check their sales progress; they stuck their heads in the sand. Because checking progress generally improves performance, this avoidance partially offset the gains spurred by greater motivation toward aspirational goals.

The practical nature of this work is central to my research. By collaborating directly with organizations, I study sales-management strategies where they are actually implemented and help managers translate research findings into systems that work in practice.

The lesson is not that organizations should abandon ambitious goals, or that turning people into ostriches is inevitable. Rather, managers should design goal communications and feedback systems together, motivating employees while encouraging them to confront useful, diagnostic information about performance progress. My ongoing research examines how the design and timing of feedback can preserve the motivational benefits of ambitious goals while limiting their unintended costs. The best goals do more than inspire people to aim higher; they also help people see clearly how to get there.

Chung, Doug J., and Dongkyu Chang (2026). “The Motivational Paradox: How Aspirational-Goal Communications Influence Sales Performance and Information Acquisition.” Marketing Science, Forthcoming.

Chang, Dongkyu, and Doug J. Chung (2026). “Managing Salespeople’s Expectations: Effort Provision and Information Acquisition under Reference-Dependent Preferences.” Management Science, Forthcoming.