His research centers on how goals and plans affect cognition, emotion, and behavior.
[12][13][14] Gollwitzer's experimental research based on these models delineates the various underlying psychological mechanisms of action control, and it distills the respective moderators.
His recent research uses previous insights on action control by if-then planning to develop powerful time and cost effective behavior change interventions; this work is rooted in the mental contrasting theory of goal pursuit as proposed by Gabriele Oettingen.
In 1993 he became the chair of the social psychology and motivation unit at the University of Konstanz, Germany.
He is married to a fellow NYU professor, Princess Gabriele of Oettingen-Oettingen and Oettingen-Spielberg.