The General Maintenance Orientation Scale: Interindividual Differences in Nurturing what We Have

From health to personal property and intimate relationships, people have valuable things that require effort and care to be maintained. We present a new measure of individual differences in maintenance striving, guided by a refined theoretical perspective on maintenance. Based on the expectancy-value framework, the General Maintenance Orientation (GMO) scale includes two constructs – one reflecting the value of the maintenance goal (appreciation of the current state; A), and the other reflecting the expectancy that maintenance behavior will serve one’s maintenance goal (belief in the necessity of maintenance; B). We show how this scale crucially extends our understanding of goal pursuit. Specifically, in line with our conception of the motivational underpinnings of maintenance, we predicted, pre-registered, and confirmed that the expectancy construct of the GMO correlates with a general avoidance tendency, whereas the value construct correlates with a general approach tendency. Accordingly, we offer a theoretical perspective that takes into account both points of overlap and divergence between maintenance, approach, and avoidance. We additionally found that, using the GMO, it is possible to disentangle maintenance, approach, and avoidance pursuit in important life domains. We therefore suggest that the GMO is a useful tool for researching and theorizing about maintenance motivation.