• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.11-20
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• 2016

This study was performed to examine how intrinsic acceptance for happenstance(IAH) affects evaluation of the means to achieve additional goals when the additional goals are happened to be added to the original means-goal link. Specifically, participants were asked to evaluate the effectiveness of means(e.g., exercise and saving) to achieve additional goals which are either more or less relevant to the means. The result showed that participants with high IAH were more likely to think that the original means is effective to accomplish additional goals than those with low IAH. This pattern, however, was found only when the additional goals are relevant to the means. When the relevance of the additional goals to the means was low, there was no difference in evaluation of the effectiveness of the means to achieve additional goals between participants with high and low IAH. Future research and implications of this study for goal-systems theory and intrinsic acceptance for happenstance were discussed.