Committed but Closed-Minded: When Making a Specific Plan for a Goal Hinders Success.

Much work has shown that planning facilitates goal attainment. The present work demonstrates that while plans generally make people more likely to act on a goal, they may sometimes lead to failure rather than to success, particularly when recognizing and seizing an alternative opportunity is essential for achieving the goal. Participants were assigned a goal in the lab, with sufficient or insufficient time and with a specific plan or broad intention to attain it. With sufficient (unlimited) time, a specific plan increased attainment, thus replicating the usual benefit of planning. Within the insufficient time condition, however, the specific plan impaired performance, because participants failed to capitalize on an alternative opportunity for achieving the goal. When openness to alternatives is crucial to success, plans can drastically decrease overall rates of attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]