Larry Baer

Dr. Nathan Hall, one of the CRDH's
newest members, studies achieve-
ment motivation strategies across
the lifespan.

When faced with a situation in which one is unable to achieve one’s goals, the best strategies may sometimes be counterintuitive ones that focus on accepting one’s limitations and lowering expectations. Disengaging in this way helps to maintain well-being and increases the chances of success in achieving subsequent goals. These are some of the findings of one of the CRDH’s newest members, Nathan Hall (Educational and Counselling Psychology; McGill).

Dr. Hall joined the CRDH shortly after arriving at McGill University in the summer of 2010. His principal area of research is achievement motivation, which he studies in different developmental transition contexts across the lifespan by analyzing health, well-being, and performance outcomes. For example, he has investigated achievement motivation strategies in university undergraduates and in older adults experiencing both acute and chronic health problems. He has also devised interventions that target maladaptive academic motivational strategies in the undergraduate student population.

Building on the main theoretical models of his field, Dr. Hall describes successful motivational strategies as a mix of approaches that are sometimes oriented to engagement to a given goal and sometimes to disengagement from it. Strategies for achievement that might be considered counter-intuitive include self-protection (putting things in perspective and looking for the positive in a bad situation), downward adjustment of one’s goals (such as changing the deadline to meet a goal), and complete disengagement or simply giving up and moving on to try something else. While we usually use engagement strategies to achieve our goals, such as studying harder to get the A+, we all sometimes find ourselves in situations where we can’t achieve the goals we want – perhaps we are limited by illness (not having the physical energy to keep the house as clean as we’d like) or by family obligations (not having the time to study enough to get an A+) or if we take care of a new baby and also manage to study harder, we’ll burn out and get sick. Finally, we may sometimes not be that interested in what we’re doing. At times like these, acknowledging these limitations and modifying our goals and our achievement strategies may be the wisest course of action. But complete goal disengagement is rarely necessary, as there are often better alternatives than complete withdrawal.

Dr. Hall has been involved in developing interventions aimed at changing the achievement motivation strategies of at-risk university students. These interventions typically involve watching a video or reading about successful achievement motivation strategies, followed by a reflective exercise and a debriefing. He has typically observed an upward change of one letter grade associated with increased engagement by the students following a failure to attain academic goals. Dr. Hall is now trying to combine engagement and disengagement strategies in an intervention targeted at pre-med students who are highly motivated but are also at a high risk of failure to not get into medical school. He is also analyzing the effectiveness of disseminating these interventions via the Internet.

Dr. Hall has studied the same processes in older adults who are adjusting to changes in their health, either acute events such as heart attacks, or chronic degenerative illnesses such as arthritis. Similar to his findings with university students and academic achievement, Dr. Hall has found that, for acute health problems, a combination of self-protective and engagement strategies is most beneficial to increasing physical and mental well-being and decreasing mortality.

As for Dr. Hall’s own achievements, he has attained his goal of returning from the U.S. to work in a Canadian university and is motivated to get his lab up and running as soon as possible. When asked what the experience of settling in Montreal has been like after leading the nomadic existence of the graduate student and the postdoc, he replied, laughing, “Exhaling.” He also wants it to be known that he has already collected data from California, Germany, and Manitoba that is waiting to be analyzed by motivated graduate students.