Are You Ready for a Fresh Start? (Update)

Behavioral scientists have been exploring whether a psychological reset can lead to lasting change. In this update of a 2021 episode, we survey evidence from the London Underground, Major League Baseball, and New Year’s resolutions to look at accidental fresh starts, forced fresh starts, fresh starts that backfire — and the ones that succeed.

• SOURCES:• Katy Milkman (oid.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/kmilkman), professor at the Wharton School.
• Andy Byford (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Byford), former commissioner of Transport for London.
• Ferdinand Rauch (frauch.weebly.com), economist at the University of St. Gallen.
• Hengchen Dai (anderson.ucla.edu/faculty-and-research/managem…), professor at U.C.L.A.’s Anderson School of Management.
• Bob Tewksbury (baseball-reference.com/players/t/tewksbo01.shtml), former big-league pitcher.

• RESOURCES:• “A Large-Scale Experiment on New Year’s Resolutions: Approach-Oriented Goals are More Successful than Avoidance-Oriented Goals (journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/j…),” by Martin Oscarsson, Per Carlbring, Gerhard Andersson, and Alexander Rozental (PLOS ONE, 2020).
• “A Double-Edged Sword: How and Why Resetting Performance Metrics Affects Motivation and Performance (sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S074…),” by Hengchen Dai (Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2018).
• “The Benefits of Forced Experimentation: Striking Evidence from the London Underground Network (users.ox.ac.uk/~econ0360/FerdinandRauch/Tube.pdf),” by Shaun Larcom, Ferdinand Rauch, and Tim Willems (2017).
• “Framing the Future: The Risks of Pre-Commitment Nudges and Potential of Fresh Start Messaging (static1.squarespace.com/static/5353b838e4b0e68…),” by John Beshears, Hengchen Dai, Katherine L. Milkman, and Shlomo Benartzi (NBER, 2016).
• “The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior (pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mnsc.20…),” by Hengchen Dai, Katherine L. Milkman, and Jason Riis (Management Science, 2014).
• “Holding the Hunger Games Hostage at the Gym: An Evaluation of Temptation Bundlin (pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mnsc.20…)g,” by Katherine L. Milkman, Julia A. Minson, and Kevin G. M. Volpp (Management Science, 2013).
• “The Resolution Solution: Longitudinal Examination of New Year’s Change Attempts (sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S089…),” by John C. Norcross and Dominic J.Vangarelli (Journal of Substance Abuse, 1989).

• EXTRAS:• How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be (amazon.com/gp/product/059308375X/ref=as_li_qf_…), by Katy Milkman (2021).

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