Nonconscious goal pursuit: Acting in an explanatory vacuum

Nonconsciously activated goals and consciously set goals produce the same outcomes by engaging similar psychological processes (Bargh, 1990; Gollwitzer & Bargh, 2005). However, nonconscious and conscious goal pursuit may have different effects on subsequent affect if goal pursuit affords an explanation, as nonconscious goal pursuit occurs in an explanatory vacuum (i.e. cannot be readily attributed to the respective goal intention). We compared self-reported affect after nonconscious versus conscious goal pursuit that either violated or conformed to a prevailing social norm. When goal-directed behavior did not require an explanation (was norm-conforming), affective experiences did not differ after nonconscious and conscious goal pursuit. However, when goal-directed behavior required an explanation (was norm-violating), nonconscious goal pursuit induced more negative affect than conscious goal pursuit.     

The influence of social groups on goal contagion

Goal contagion is the automatic adoption of a goal upon perceiving another’s goal-directed behavior (Aarts, H., Gollwitzer, P. M., & Hassin, R. R. (2004). Goal contagion: Perceiving is for pursuing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(1), 23-37). This paper tests the hypothesis that goal contagion is more likely between people who belong to the same groups. Because past work on goal contagion has required participants to read about the behavior of others, we also test whether goals are caught when one sees rather than reads about another’s motivated behavior. Across three studies, this ecologically valid methodology reliably produced goal contagion, and this effect was more likely to emerge when participants shared a group membership with those they observed. In Study 1, participants were more likely to take on the goal of individuals who belonged to their same university. Study 2 demonstrated that this effect occurred even when participants were not explicitly focused on the group membership of others. A final study verified that our effects were motivational by demonstrating that failing at a goal relevant task increased negative affect, but only for those who viewed the motivated behavior of someone from their own group.     

New Directions in Goal-Setting Theory

ABSTRACT— Goal-setting theory is summarized regarding the effectiveness of specific, difficult goals; the relationship of goals to affect; the mediators of goal effects; the relation of goals to self-efficacy; the moderators of goal effects; and the generality of goal effects across people, tasks, countries, time spans, experimental designs, goal sources (i.e., self-set, set jointly with others, or assigned), and dependent variables. Recent studies concerned with goal choice and the factors that influence it, the function of learning goals, the effect of goal framing, goals and affect (well-being), group goal setting, goals and traits, macro-level goal setting, and conscious versus subconscious goals are described. Suggestions are given for future research.     

Big Picture,Bad Outcomes: When Visual Perspectives Harm Health Goal Pursuit

People often fail to achieve health goals, which compromises their well‐being. Prior research suggests that seeing events through an observer's eyes (i.e., adopting a third‐person perspective) should facilitate goal pursuit. However, we find that third‐person perspectives discourage goal‐consistent intentions and behavior for health goals when goal centrality is low (i.e., the goal is peripheral to one's self‐concept). In Experiment 1, people who adopted a third‐person perspective chose more sugary foods if they considered a healthy eating goal to be more peripheral to the self. Experiment 2 examines why a third‐person perspective can hinder goal pursuit; it encourages a breakdown in implemental thinking which, in turn, increases negative self‐conscious emotions. While high goal centrality buffers people from negative effects on goal intentions, low centrality does not. Experiment 3 demonstrates that this effect is robust when goal centrality is manipulated. We recommend that consumers pursuing health goals (and individuals who support them) exercise caution when employing perspective‐based strategies, as they may backfire for people at greatest risk of goal abandonment.     

When pursuing bad goals for good reasons makes it even worse: a social value approach to performance-avoidance goal pursuit

Consistently in achievement goal research, pursuing performance-avoidance goals has been associated with a decrease in achievement. Less is known to what extent this effect depends on the reasons underlying these goals’ endorsement. The present research uses a social value approach to assess how do performance-avoidance goals’ effects on achievement depend on the reasons anchored in social utility (goal endorsed in order to succeed) and in social desirability (goal endorsed in order to please one’s teachers). Based on five correlational samples meta-analyzed in Study 1, results showed that perceiving performance-avoidance goals as socially useful increased the negative effect of these goals on achievement. This moderating effect was replicated experimentally in Study 2. These findings support the relevance of studying achievement goal complexes and illustrate that performance-avoidance goals may lead to deleterious consequences even when endorsed for seemingly good reasons.

     

Inaccurate self-knowledge formation as a result of automatic behavior

Four studies tested a post-priming misattribution process whereby a primed goal automatically influences people's behavior, but because people are unaware of that influence, they misattribute their behavior to some other internal state. People who were primed with a goal were more likely to choose an activity that was relevant to that goal, but did not recognize that the prime had influenced their choices. Instead, people used more accessible and plausible reasons to explain their behavior. The goals were seeking romantic interaction (Studies 1 and 2), helping (Study 3) and earning money (Study 4). People made choices related to these goals but misattributed the choices to temporary preferences (Studies 1 and 3) and more permanent dispositions (Studies 2 and 4). The misattribution had downstream effects, leading to choice behavior consistent with the erroneous self-knowledge. We suggest that automatic behavior can lead to a confabulated self-knowledge with behavioral consequences.     

无意识目标对道德取向的调节作用

已有研究表明目标可以在无意识的条件下被激活并自动地引导行为以达成目标,但该过程是否通过调节心理准备状态实现尚不清楚。本研究考察了无意识目标对个体道德取向的影响。实验1通过语义启动方式激活被试的成就目标,结果发现,与未激活任何目标的被试相比,激活了无意识成就目标的被试更偏向功利主义道德取向。实验2激活被试母亲的概念,结果发现这部分被试比对照组更偏向道义主义道德取向。上述结果表明,自动激活的目标可以影响个体的道德取向,使个体面对道德情境时能做出更合适的行为以达成目标。     

Emotions experienced at event recall and the self: Implications for the regulation of self-esteem,self-continuity and meaningfulness

The intensity of positive affect elicited by recall of positive events exceeds the intensity of negative affect elicited by recall of negative events (fading affect bias, or FAB). The research described in the present article examined the relation between the FAB and three regulatory goals of the self: esteem, continuity and meaningfulness. The extent to which an event contributed to esteem (Study 1), continuity (Study 2) or meaningfulness (Study 3) was related to positive affect at event recall provoked by positive memories and to negative affect at event recall provoked by negative memories. The relation between affect experienced at recall and the three regulatory goals was bidirectional. The results showcase how individuals use recall for self-regulatory purposes and how they implement self-regulatory goals for positive affect.     

Positive affect and physical activity: Testing effects on goal setting,activation, prioritisation,and attainment

Objective: The present research tested whether incidental positive affect promotes pursuit of physical activity goals. Four key features of goal pursuit were examined – setting physical activity goals (Study 1), goal activation (Study 2), and goal prioritization and goal attainment (Study 3).

Design: Participants (N_s = 80, 81, and 59, in Studies 1–3, respectively) were randomized to positive affect (joy, hope) or neutral affect (control) conditions in each study.

Main Outcome Measures: Questionnaire measures of goal level, goal commitment, and means selection (Study 1); a lexical decision task indexed goal activation (Study 2), a choice task captured goal prioritization and MET minutes quantified goal attainment (Study 3).

Results: Study 1 showed that positive affect led to a greater number of intended physical activities, and that joy engendered greater willingness to try activities. In Study 2, a positive affect induction led to heightened activation of the physical activity goal compared to the control condition. The joy induction in Study 3 led to greater physical activity, and a trend towards greater goal prioritization.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that positive affect enhances the pursuit of physical activity goals. Implications for health behavior theories and interventions are outlined.     

Implementation intentions as goal primes: Boosting self‐control in tempting environments

People often forget their long‐term strivings because their environment confronts them with attractive temptations. Previous research suggests that self‐control failures can be prevented by reminding people of their higher‐order goal. Therefore, we hypothesized that using implementation intentions as a tool to directly re‐activate people's higher‐order goal in tempting situations would effectively enhance self‐control. We tested this in the domain of dieting behavior. Results demonstrated that this specific planning strategy activated the dieting goal for unsuccessful dieters when exposed to tempting food cues (Study 1) and reduced their consumption of calorically dense food across 2 weeks (Study 2) compared to those in control conditions. This suggests that preparing people to think of their higher‐order goal when tempted can be used to protect ongoing goal striving. Appealing to higher‐order goals potentially makes implementation intentions flexible instruments of self‐regulation as this should trigger motivated behavior to reach goals and initiate various goal‐instrumental actions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

无意识目标：激活与追求

目标自动激活模型认为,目标是行为满意状态或结果在个体头脑中的表征,它能够通过相关情境自动激活。无意识目标的激活方式有语义激活、工具激活和人际激活。无意识目标追求与有意识目标追求在目标实现、目标投射和动机特征方面相似,但其行为产生机制有所不同。未来研究应该对无意识目标的机制及其具体应用进行深入的探讨     

Asking “why” helps action control by goals but not plans

The present research investigated whether asking “why” concerning the pursuit of one goal can affect the subsequent pursuit of a previously chosen goal. Asking “why” should activate cognitive procedures involving deliberation over the pros and cons of a goal (why-mindset). This mode of thinking should spill over to subsequently pursued goals, with different consequences for goal striving guided by goal intentions and for goal striving guided by implementation intentions (if-then plans). As goal intentions guide behavior by effortful top-down action control processes motivated by the expected value of the desired outcomes, being in a why-mindset should induce defensive postdecisional deliberation and thereby promote goal pursuit. In contrast, implementation intentions guide behavior by automatic bottom-up action control processes triggered by the specified situational cues; in this case, being in a why-mindset should eliminate the effects implementation intentions have on goal pursuit. Performance on a handgrip self-control task (Study 1) as well as on a dual-task (simultaneous go/no-go task and tracking tasks; Study 2) supported these predictions: why-mindsets reinforced goal intention effects and impaired implementation intention effects on handgrip and dual-task performance. Implications for effective goal striving are discussed.     

Sexual overperception: power, mating motives, and biases in social judgment

Results from 4 experiments suggest that power motivates heightened perceptions and expectations of sexual interest from subordinates. Having power over a member of the opposite sex activated sexual concepts that persisted across a temporal delay, indicating the activation of a mating goal (Study 1). Having power increased participants' expectations of sexual interest from a subordinate (Study 2) but only when a mating goal was attainable (i.e., when the subordinate was romantically available; Study 3). In a face-to-face interaction between 2 participants, power heightened perceptions of sexual interest and sexualized behavior among participants with chronically active mating goals (i.e., sexually unrestricted individuals; Study 4). Tests of mediation demonstrated that sexual overperception mediated power's effect on sexually tinged behavior. Through its capacity to induce goal pursuit, power can activate mating goals that sexualize interactions between men and women. This research demonstrates one route through which power might lead to sexual harassment.     

Linking goal self-concordance and affective reactions to goal conflict

Most people would agree that facing goal conflict is a negative experience. However, many, but not all empirical studies actually show a negative relationship between goal conflicts and well-being: goal conflicts apparently differ in their effects. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of the level of goal self-concordance (i.e., to what extent goals are pursued with self-determined motivation) for people’s affective reactions to goal conflicts due to resource constraints. Analyses of goal conflicts experienced at work by N = 647 junior scientists shed light onto the role of levels of self-concordance of the conflicting goals on the way the goal conflict is experienced. Results show that goal self-concordance explains variance in affective reaction beyond goal importance and goal attainability. More specifically, conflicts between two goals with high levels of self-concordance are associated to rather positive affect (e.g., excited). In contrast, conflicts between two goals with low levels of self-concordance are associated to rather negative affect (e.g., frustrated). Overall, these results emphasize the need to consider goal properties in future research on goal conflicts.     

Implementation intentions and shielding goal striving from unwanted thoughts and feelings

Forming an implementation intention or "if-then plan" promotes the attainment of different types of goals (Gollwitzer, 1999; Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006). So far, research on implementation intentions has focused on the initiation of goal striving, whereas the issue of shielding of ongoing goal striving has been largely neglected. In two field experiments concerned with dieting (Study 1) and athletic goals (Study 2), goal shielding was supported by implementation intentions geared at controlling potentially interfering inner states (i.e., cravings for junk food in Study 1, and disruptive thoughts, feelings, and physiological states in Study 2). In both experiments, forming if-then plans enhanced the rate of goal attainment. Thus, implementation intention formation can be used to promote the realization of desired outcomes not only by facilitating getting started with goal striving but also by preventing goal striving from straying off course.     

Sources of avoidance motivation: Valence effects from physical effort and mental rotation

When reaching goals, organisms must simultaneously meet the overarching goal of conserving energy. According to the law of least effort, organisms will select the means associated with the least effort. The mechanisms underlying this bias remain unknown. One hypothesis is that organisms come to avoid situations associated with unnecessary effort by generating a negative valence toward the stimuli associated with such situations. Accordingly, merely using a dysfunctional, ‘slow’ computer mouse causes participants to dislike ambient neutral images (Study 1). In Study 2, nonsense shapes were liked less when associated with effortful processing (135° of mental rotation) versus easier processing (45° of rotation). Complementing ‘fluency’ effects found in perceptuo-semantic research, valence emerged from action-related processing in a principled fashion. The findings imply that negative valence associations may underlie avoidance motivations, and have practical implications for educational/workplace contexts in which effort and positive affect are conducive to success.     

On the Emergence of Human Goal Pursuit: The Nonconscious Regulation and Motivation of Goals

Experimental research in social psychology has discovered that human goal pursuit can emerge in the absence of conscious awareness. Whereas these goal-priming effects are commonly explained in terms of habitual automatic processes, recent studies shed new light on the matter. Building on this recent work, this paper attempts to promote a more comprehensive understanding and examination of the potential mechanisms that enable people to pursue their goals in a nonconscious fashion. Specifically, it addresses (i) the human capacity to pursue goals without awareness of the activation and operation of the goal, even when habits are inadequate; and (ii) the fundamental role of positive affect in nonconsciously modulating the motivation of goals and their pursuit.     

The object of my protection: Shielding fundamental motives from the implicit motivational influence of others

Goal shielding theory suggests that one's focal pursuits automatically inhibit the activation of interfering goals (Shah, Friedman, & Kruglanski, 2002); however, it is not entirely clear how individuals come to identify what constitutes “interfering”. Three studies examine how this identification process may be guided by fundamental social motives that individuals possess, particularly in social situations wherein goals are primed through mere exposure to others' goal-directed behavior (“goal contagion”, Aarts, Gollwitzer, & Hassin, 2004). Participants' fundamental motives for positive self-regard (Study 1), autonomy (Study 2), and distinctiveness (Study 3) were either manipulated or measured and participants read scenarios that manipulated the goal-directed behavior of a target other. Results indicated that participants inhibited the activation of goals being primed by others when the implicit influence interfered with their fundamental motives in some way. These findings suggest that fundamental motives can guide whether individuals will catch goals from others or shield themselves from such influences.     

Implementation intentions, perfectionism, and goal progress: perhaps the road to hell is paved with good intentions

Two studies explored whether perfectionism moderates the impact of implementation intentions on goal progress. Study 1 used an implementation intention manipulation to examine the effects of these plans in interaction with perfectionism on the progress of New Year's resolutions. Study 2 added a repeated implementation intention condition and monitored affect and monthly goal progress. The results of both studies revealed a significant backfire effect of the implementation intentions on goal progress for participants high on a particular dimension of perfectionism (socially prescribed perfectionism). These perfectionists reported doing significantly worse at reaching their personal goals when they were asked to formulate implementation intentions than when they completed a control exercise. There also was evidence that implementation planning aroused negative affect for socially prescribed perfectionists. These results are the first to suggest that implementation planning may be contra-indicated for individuals with self-critical tendencies.     

Implicit processing goals combine with explicit goal standards to motivate performance through underlying comparison processes

This research investigates whether explicit goals interact with implicit processing goals that are activated simultaneously. Based on the idea that (a) explicit goals are used as comparison standards, and (b) implicit processing goals have motivational consequences by influencing the process of comparison with those standards, these studies elucidate the mechanism by which explicit and implicit goals combine to influence task performance. Study 1 demonstrated that a primed goal to process similarities versus differences interacted with explicit goal standards in influencing subsequent task performance. High explicit goals resulted in better performance when participants had the implicit goal of processing similarities, whereas low explicit goals resulted in better performance when the implicit goal was processing differences. Study 2 provided evidence that perceived similarity to a target person is a critical factor for the pursuit of explicit goals and that this similarity influences task performance in the same way as the primed goal to process similarities. Study 3 indicated that processing similarities results from assimilation to a moderately high goal, whereas processing differences is the result of contrasting away from an extremely high goal. These findings confirm that implicit processing of similarities versus differences has a combined influence with explicit goals on task performance. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.