Gary Latham, PhD: Goal Setting, Prompts, Priming, and Skepticism

Gary Latham, PhD is the Secretary of State Professor of Organizational Behaviour at the Rotman School of Management in the University of Toronto. His research in the field of organizational psychology has yielded over 200 peer-reviewed publications and he has written several books on the topic of goal setting. He and his lifelong research partner, Ed Locke PhD, are responsible for Goal Setting Theory, prized by both the scientific community and sales leaders around the world.

He is the only recipient of both the Distinguished Contributions to Science award and the Practice award from SIOP. Top it off, he is only the second researcher we’ve talked to on Behavioral Grooves that was cited in Kurt’s dissertation.

Our Discussion

In our discussion with Professor Latham, we reviewed Goal Setting Theory, specific goals, participatory goals and talked about the relative importance of inductive and deductive reasoning. More importantly, we covered some of our favorite research on priming and were able to have a discussion about Kurt’s socks: are they prompts or primes? (You’ll have to listen to find out!)

For a sneak-peak of this episode, you can watch a 4 min YouTube clip here.

If you like what you hear, please feel free to give us a quick review or sign up for cool rewards on our Patreon site (https://www.patreon.com/behavioralgrooves). Thanks for your support.

PLEASE NOTE: We encountered some technical challenges while recording our conversation with Professor Latham and it’s audio quality is slightly below our standards. We considered a re-do, but we decided to stick with our original conversation, which is what we present in this episode. We hope you enjoy it.

Other Episodes You Will Enjoy

John Bargh: Dante, Coffee and the Unconscious Mind https://behavioralgrooves.com/episode/john-bargh-dante-coffee-and-the-unconscious-mind/

GAABS and Improving the Future for Every Applied Behavioral Scientist https://behavioralgrooves.com/episode/improving-the-future-for-every-applied-behavioral-scientist/

Episode 204: How Shellye Archambeau Flies Like an Eagle https://behavioralgrooves.com/episode/shellye-archambeau-like-an-eagle/

© 2020 Behavioral Grooves

Podcast: Play in new window | Download