
Operations, Information and Decisions Papers
Document Type
Technical Report
Date of this Version
7-2016
Publication Source
Psychological Science
Volume
27
Issue
7
Start Page
973
Last Page
986
DOI
10.1177/0956797616643071
Abstract
People often fail to follow through on good intentions. While limited self-control is frequently the culprit, another cause is simply forgetting to enact intentions when opportunities arise. We introduce a novel, potent approach to facilitating follow-through: the reminders-through-association approach. This approach involves associating intentions (e.g., to mail a letter on your desk tomorrow) with distinctive cues that will capture attention when you have opportunities to act on those intentions (e.g., Valentine’s Day flowers that arrived late yesterday, which are sitting on your desk). We showed that cue-based reminders are more potent when the cues they employ are distinctive relative to (a) other regularly encountered stimuli and (b) other stimuli encountered concurrently. Further, they can be more effective than written or electronic reminder messages, and they are undervalued and underused. The reminders-through-association approach, developed by integrating and expanding on past research on self-control, reminders, and prospective memory, can be a powerful tool for policymakers and individuals.
Copyright/Permission Statement
Rogers, T. & Milkman, K.L., Reminders through Association, Psychological Science 27, no. 7: pp. 973-986. Copyright © 2016 Association for Psychological Science. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications
This is a pre-publication version. The final version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797616643071
Keywords
decision making, memory, policymaking, self-control, open data, open materials
Recommended Citation
Rogers, T., & Milkman, K. L. (2016). Reminders through Association. Psychological Science, 27 (7), 973-986. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797616643071
Included in
Business Commons, Cognition and Perception Commons, Cognitive Psychology Commons, Personality and Social Contexts Commons, Social Psychology Commons
Date Posted: 11 July 2018
This document has been peer reviewed.