Mixed Expectations: Effects of Goal Ambivalence during Pregnancy on Maternal Well-Being, Stress, and Coping.

BACKGROUND: We hypothesised that experiencing ambivalence toward the childbearing goal would be related to indicators of well-being, stress, and coping among women with planned pregnancies. METHODS: Study 1 (N = 208) tested cross-sectional associations between goal ambivalence and measures of well-being, stress, and coping. It also included a postpartum measurement point (N = 71) to examine prospective effects of goal ambivalence. Study 2 (N = 109) extended the investigation to within-person effects in a three-week daily diary assessment. RESULTS: In Study 1, goal ambivalence in pregnant women was positively associated with depressive symptoms, perceived stress, and pregnancy-specific avoidance-oriented coping, and negatively associated with coping self-efficacy. Goal ambivalence also predicted changes in life satisfaction, depressive symptoms, perceived stress, and coping self-efficacy postpartum. Study 2 revealed within-person effects of daily fluctuations in goal ambivalence on day-to-day changes in positive emotions, negative activation, and avoidance-oriented coping. CONCLUSIONS: Ambivalence towards the childbearing goal is a source of significant distress to pregnant women with planned pregnancies and its effects seem to extend into the postpartum period. These findings may have important clinical implications for maternal and child well-being. Future studies should examine whether goal ambivalence during pregnancy affects the maternal-child relationship in the long term.

Unconflicted goal striving: goal ambivalence as a mediator between goal self-concordance and well-being.

This research introduces low goal ambivalence as a relevant correlate of goal self-concordance. In three studies, we tested the hypothesis that university freshmen's ambivalence toward the goal of completing their degree mediates the effect of goal self-concordance on subjective well-being. In Studies 1 and 2, differences in goal ambivalence accounted for effects of goal self-concordance on concurrent life satisfaction and affect at the end of the freshman year. Study 3 evidenced a longitudinal mediation effect of goal ambivalence on 1-year post-entry increases in life and study satisfaction, which were explained through perceptions of goal progress at the end of the freshman year. Decomposing self-concordance into autonomous and controlled motivation revealed non-redundant parallel effects for both subcomponents. These results point to ambivalence as a significant experience in goal pursuit and suggest that it represents an additional explanatory variable in the self-concordance model of goal striving and longitudinal well-being.