# Goal-Gradient Effect

The tendency to approach a goal increases with proximity to the goal.

The tendency to approach a goal increases with proximity to the goal.

### Takeaways

-   The closer users are to completing a task, the faster they work towards reaching it.

-   Providing artificial progress towards a goal will help to ensure users are more likely to have the motivation to complete that task.

-   Provide a clear indication of progress in order to motivate users to complete tasks.

### Origins

  The goal-gradient hypothesis, originally proposed by the behaviorist Clark Hull in 1932, states that the tendency to approach a goal increases with proximity to the goal. In a classic experiment that tests this hypothesis, Hull (1934) found that rats in a straight alley ran progressively faster as they proceeded from the starting box to the food. Although the goal-gradient hypothesis has been investigated exten-sively with animals (e.g., Anderson 1933; Brown 1948; for a review, see Heilizer 1977), its implications for human behavior and decision making are understudied. Further-more, this issue has important theoretical and practical implications for intertemporal consumer behavior in reward programs (hereinafter RPs) and other types of motivational systems (e.g., Deighton 2000; Hsee, Yu, and Zhang 2003; Kivetz 2003; Lal and Bell 2003).

  Source

### Further Reading

###
    How Uber uses psychology to perfect their customer experience

  Jennifer Clinehens | Choice Hacking

###
    Moving the Finish Line: The Goal Gradient Hypothesis

  Farnam Street

###
    Designing for motivation with the goal-gradient effect

  Ian Batterbee | UX Collective

###
    The Goal-Gradient Hypothesis Resurrected: Purchase Acceleration, Illusionary Goal Progress, and Customer Retention

  Ran Kivetz, Oleg Urminsky, Yuhuang Zheng | uchicago.edu

###
    The importance of percent-done progress indicators for computer-human interfaces

  Brad A. Myers | Carnegie Mellon University

      Buy Large Format Poster

      Download free poster

---

Source: https://lawsofux.com/goal-gradient-effect/
Category: Theory
Tags: proximity, progress