SITUATED
GOAL PURSUIT LAB
LATEST NEWS
Prof. Kentaro Fujita Shares Research with SPUR Lab | June 2026
Our Principal Investigator, Lile, recently hosted Prof. Kentaro Fujita from The Ohio State University for a research seminar with the lab.
During his visit, Ken shared his latest work on the "rank-scope bias," discussing how people associate different organizational ranks with different levels of regulatory scope. He also explored how these cognitive and motivational mechanisms influence decision-making and self-control.
A/P Lile Jia Featured on CNA's The Science of Ageing Well | February 2026
Our Principal Investigator, Lile, was recently featured in The Science of Ageing Well, a video series by Channel NewsAsia exploring the latest research on healthy ageing. In the episode "Unlocking the Mind," Lile discusses how the brain builds resilience over a lifetime and why emotional well-being is a powerful — yet often overlooked — factor in ageing well.
Featured: We Need Well-Being More Than Willpower
Does self-control lead to happiness, or is it the other way around? A new article in Greater Good Magazine features our lab’s research, suggesting we may have the equation backwards.
The study challenges the traditional view that willpower is the primary driver of a good life. Instead, the findings reveal that psychological well-being is a critical fuel for self-control—meaning that prioritizing joy and purpose is often more effective for reaching goals than simply "knuckling through."
Congratulations to our lab members behind this impactful work:
Shuna, Lile, Harif, Ying & Liangyu.
ABOUT
Welcome to the Situated Goal Pursuit Lab supervised by Dr Jia Lile.
Goals are desirable end states people want to maintain (e.g., staying healthy) or achieve (e.g., academic excellence).
More often than not, people pursue important goals in various intrapersonal (e.g., temptations, prior goal pursuit efforts) and interpersonal (e.g., others’ goal pursuit, social interaction) contexts. Consistent with the perspective of situated social cognition (Smith & Semin, 2004), our lab examines how the various aspects of the goal pursuit process are dynamically shaped by the relevant context.