The intention‐superiority effect for naturally occurring activities: The role of intention accessibility in everyday prospective remembering in young and older adults

This study examined age differences in the accessibility of a single pool of naturally occurring intentions both before and after completion. Following Maylor, Darby, and Della Sala (2000), accessibility was measured in terms of the number of activities generated in a 4‐minute activity fluency task. Each participant undertook two such tasks. A prospective task in which they generated activities intended for completion during the following week and a retrospective task, 1 week later, in which they generated activities carried out over the previous week. In a partial replication of Maylor et al.'s findings, young, but not healthy older, adults generated more to‐be‐completed intentions than completed ones, demonstrating an intention‐superiority effect (ISE) for everyday activities. The absence of an ISE for older adults appeared to reflect the reduced accessibility of intentions prior to completion, rather than the impaired inhibition of fulfilled intentions. Moreover, both groups showed greater inaccessibility of completed than intended activities, thus demonstrating an intention‐completion effect for naturally occurring intentions that is preserved in healthy ageing (cf. Marsh, Hicks, & Bink, 1998). Despite showing a reduced accessibility of intended activities, older adults reported having completed a greater proportion of their intentions during the week than young adults. Moreover, there was a correlation between the ability to access intentions and the proportion of intentions completed only for young adults. These observations suggest that older adults' everyday prospective memory performance may be relatively less dependent on intention accessibility and more dependent on other factors. While there was no age difference in the reported use and effectiveness of external retrieval aids, older adults demonstrated a greater level of temporal organization in the production of their intentions in the fluency task. This is consistent with the possibility that older adults may have more structured daily lives and may be able to use information about the sequence of ongoing events to support superior everyday prospective remembering.     

Personality Trait Characteristics in Relation to Neuropsychological Dysfunction in Schizophrenia and Depression

Knowledge of the personality trait and psychopathology variables that differentiate neuropsychologically impaired and nonimpaired psychiatric patients has been limited relative to the study of higher cortical functions. This study reports findings from the Milton Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) developed by Millon (1982) in a sample of hospitalized schizophrenics and depressives who also received the Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological Battery. The principal findings indicate that neuropsychological dysfunction may be related to substance abuse, including its underlying personality dimensions, in schizophrenia, but only modest support is indicated for the construct of negative symptoms in schizophrenics with neuropsychological dysfunction. Further, the findings do not support the view that psychosis is a characteristic feature of depressives with impaired neuropsychological performance.     

Intention superiority effect on implicit memory of shopping lists: Activation and inhibition processes

Intentional memory is defined as the ability to remember to perform intentions in the future. Forming an intention such as “shopping” activates access to memories related to the products on the shopping list. As Intention Superiority Effect (ISE) studies show, these memories are more accessible in semantic and episodic memory, more activated over time and protected from competing representations. The inhibition of competing representations in intentional memory has been little examined so far. In this study we attempt to analyze changes in activation in the recall of products on a shopping list and competitors through implicit memory tasks. Sixty-five participants learned two shopping lists on a computer. Later, they were told to virtually buy one of them (prospective list) and not the other (neutral list). Prior to intentional task execution, they performed an implicit retrieval task in which we manipulated the appearance or not of cues from the intentional list and analyzed the influence of the items from the intentional list on items related to intentional and neutral lists. The main result of this study is that intention retrieval by intentional cues strengthens the activation of products related to the intentional list and/or inhibits competing products related to the neutral list. The inhibition is episodic rather than semantic in nature. The ISE requires the recall of the intention during the retention period through intentional cues for maintaining the intention. This seems to defend automatic recovery theories and not the intention persistence hypothesis. Also, the results are better explained by the directed forgetting paradigm rather than by the retrieval-induced forgetting paradigm.     

Planning and realization of complex intentions in traumatic brain injury and normal aging

The realization of delayed intentions (i.e., prospective memory) is a highly complex process composed of four phases: intention formation, retention, re-instantiation, and execution. The aim of this study was to investigate if executive functioning impairments are related to problems in the formation, re-instantiation, and execution of a delayed complex intention. In this context, it was another aim of the study to investigate the executive functioning hypothesis of cognitive aging in prospective memory performance. It was, therefore, explored if age-related prospective memory decline leads to similar decrements in the process of prospective remembering as executive functioning-related decline in young patients with traumatic brain injury. A group of patients with traumatic brain injury with retrospective memory within normal limits but impaired executive functions, a group of healthy older and a group of healthy younger adults completed a complex prospective memory task that allows for the separate assessment of the four phases of the prospective memory process. All groups showed a similarly high performance in the intention retention phase, whereas the patients with deficits in executive functioning and the older participants performed worse than the healthy young participants in the intention formation, re-instantiation and execution phases. The importance of executive functioning for prospective remembering in traumatic brain injury and normal aging is discussed.     

Returning to Work Following Childbirth: The Relationship Between Intentions and Behavior

College women's intentions to return to work following childbirth were compared to behavior 10 years later. Using an Ajzen-Fishbein model, college intentions were significantly related to how soon a mother returned to work after the birth of her first child. The amount of variance explained was significant for intentions and behavior. College intentions were influenced by perceived consequences, approval of significant referents, and personal control. Return to work was predicted by intention to do so, even though the behavior occurred an average of seven years after the intention was declared. This behavior was more likely to occur among those who had a sense of personal control.     

On collective intentions: collective action in economics and philosophy

Philosophers and economists write about collective action from distinct but related points of view. This paper aims to bridge these perspectives. Economists have been concerned with rationality in a strategic context. There, problems posed by “coordination games” seem to point to a form of rational action, “team thinking,” which is not individualistic. Philosophers’ analyses of collective intention, however, sometimes reduce collective action to a set of individually instrumental actions. They do not, therefore, capture the first person plural perspective characteristic of team thinking. Other analyses, problematically, depict intentions ranging over others’ actions. I offer an analysis of collective intention which avoids these problems. A collective intention aims only at causing an individual action, but its propositional content stipulates its mirroring in other minds.     

Implementation Intentions and Facilitation of Prospective Memory

Forming detailed implementation intentions for a future behavior can increase the probability that the behavior is actually completed. We investigated whether this intention effect could be used to improve prospective memory in older adults. As expected, participants who formed an implementation intention were more than twice as likely to self-initiate the intended behavior (writing down the day of the week on every sheet of paper received during the experiment) compared with participants who either were merely instructed to do so or actively rehearsed the instruction. Forming an implementation intention, however, did not improve performance on a task that required a response to salient cues. We conclude that detailed implementation intentions facilitate prospective memory on tasks that lack salient cues and require self-initiation.     

A longitudinal study of the moderating role of extraversion: leader-member exchange, performance, and turnover during new executive development

Identifying factors that help or hinder new executives in "getting up to speed" quickly and remaining with an organization is vital to maximizing the effectiveness of executive development. The current study extends past research by examining extraversion as a moderator of relationships between leader-member exchange (LMX) and performance, turnover intentions, and actual turnover for an executive sample. The sample consisted of 116 new executives who were surveyed prior to starting their employment and at 3 months postentry. A total of 67 senior executives rated these new executives in terms of overall performance at 6 months postentry. Turnover data were gathered from company records 3 1/2 years later. Hierarchical regression results showed that LMX was not related to performance or turnover intentions for those high in extraversion; but for individuals low in extraversion, there was a relation between LMX, performance, and turnover intentions. Furthermore, survival analyses showed that LMX was only related to turnover-hazard rate for individuals low in extraversion.     

Intending or Pretending? Automatic Evaluations of Goal Cues Discriminate True and False Intentions

This research presents a novel approach to discriminating between true and deceptive statements about intended future behavior. Arguing that true intentions are goal‐directed, we predict that people who genuinely intend to pursue a reported goal will implicitly evaluate goal‐relevant cues positively, whereas people who do not intend to pursue the goal will not. Participants in an experiment were instructed to tell the truth about a planned future behavior (true intention) or to falsely report that same behavior to mask their actual mock‐criminal intention (false intention). As predicted, an evaluative priming task showed that participants with true intention exhibited implicit positive evaluations of cues relevant to the reported goal, whereas participants with false intention did not. Subsequent analyses showed that implicit positivity significantly discriminated between true and false intentions. The findings are discussed in terms of theoretical contributions and implications for the development of future detection tools. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Prospective Memory Impairment in Mild Cognitive Impairment: An Analytical Review

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a heterogeneous condition characterized by the presence in an otherwise healthy elderly individual of cognitive deficits involving specific domains in the absence of significant functional impairments. Reports indicate that prospective memory (PM), that is, the ability to remember to execute delayed intentions, is impaired in individuals with MCI. The present review discusses the current debate in the literature on PM functioning in MCI by focusing on the relationship between prospective retrieval and retrospective memory functioning. Analysis of the reported evidence revealed that both the prospective component and the retrospective component of PM can be impaired in MCI. Declarative memory dysfunction may account for the retrospective memory impairment, while either reduced executive abilities or a deficit of reflexive mechanisms could explain the prospective component impairment.     

The Origin of Intentions

In contemporary discussions of the concept of intention, the assumption is made that an intention results from a person's decision, or resolution, or plan, or the like. And the intention persists, generally, until the appropriate action is carried out. However, intentions cannot be said to have temporal duration, or beginnings, or endings. And it is not necessary for a person who is intending to do something to have made a decision to do it, or a resolution, or anything else. It may be that a person acquires an intention because of the circumstances that he finds himself in. If one sees that a tricycle is in front of his car, he will move it. No decision is necessary, obviously, because running over it would be contrary to common sense. Or one may gradually come to realise that he is obliged to do something and thereupon acquires the intention to do it. By focusing on one kind of intention, the “desire‐belief” theories have failed to realise that intentions originate in various ways, and for various reasons.     

Blocked goals, persistent action: Implementation intentions engender tenacious goal striving

Research on goal attainment has demonstrated that people are more likely to reach their goals when they form implementation intentions. Three experiments tested whether implementation intentions lead to tenacious goal striving following blockage of an initial attempt to reach the goal. In all three experiments some participants were instructed to form an implementation intention and other participants were not. Subsequently, the initial goal-directed attempt of all participants was unexpectedly blocked. Experiment 1 found that implementation intentions resulted in more attempts to realize one’s goal. Experiment 2 showed that when participants formed an implementation intention their repeated attempt was acted out as intensely as their first, blocked attempt. Experiment 3 found that implementation intentions still allow people to seize an alternative, more onerous means to realize their intention. These results imply that implementation intention conserve self-regulatory strength. After goal blockage, the remaining strength can be used to continue goal-directed action.     

The development of prospective memory in children: An executive framework

Prospective memory (PM), the ability to remember to carry out one's intentions in the future, is critical for children's daily functioning and their ability to become independent from caregivers. This review assesses the current state of research on children's prospective memory. Using an executive functioning framework the literature can be organized into studies examining four factors that influence PM. We discuss studies that have manipulated the nature of the intention, the content or length of the retention interval, the nature of the ongoing task, and the nature of the PM cue. Further, we propose a model that attempts to account for the development of PM across childhood based on advances in executive control. Finally, we suggest promising future directions for research.     

Effects of Implementation Intentions Linking Suppression of Alcohol Consumption to Socializing Goals on Alcohol‐Related Decisions

This article investigates the effects of implementation intentions that connect the suppression of alcohol consumption to socializing goals on the decision to accept an offer of a free alcoholic drink. Participants were university students (N = 48) who were randomly assigned to an implementation intention condition or a control condition. The results show that participants who formed implementation intentions were less likely to accept the offer of a free alcoholic drink than were participants who did not form implementation intentions. In addition, the results demonstrate that the implementation intention effect held among habitual alcohol drinkers. The results of the present study suggest that implementation exercises can successfully suppress habitual alcohol consumption.     

TAKING ON INTENTIONS

I propose a model of intention formation and argue that it illuminates and does justice to the complex and interesting relationships between intentions on the one hand and practical deliberation, evaluative judgements, desires, beliefs, and conduct on the other. As I explain, my model allows that intentions normally stem from pro-attitudes and normally control conduct, but it is also revealing with respect to cases in which intentions do not stem from pro-attitudes or do not control conduct. Moreover, it makes the connection between forming an intention and altering one's deliberative framework transparent, and directly accounts for the fact that while intentions can affect how it makes sense for an agent to reason and what it makes sense for her to do, one cannot make an action that one is tempted to perform worth performing simply by forming a related intention.     

行为执行意向的理论观点及其相关研究

执行意向是指个体以行动目标为导向,通过连接情景线索和目标导向反应,建立行为意向和实际行为之间联系的中介变量。通过梳理执行意向的概念、心理联系及应用研究,发现执行意向主要与行为意向、自我协调、合作性、计划提醒、自觉性、人格等变量产生心理联系;形成执行意向的人具有克服困难,达到既定目标的积极心理状态。然而,执行意向并不总是发挥其积极效应,其与具体情景、个体差异性等有关。最后,文章从四个方面对今后研究的热点与方向进行了展望。     

When planning is needed: Implementation intentions and attainment of approach versus avoidance health goals

OBJECTIVE: This study tested whether forming implementation intentions is an effective strategy for attaining health goals focused on trying to avoid a negative state. DESIGN: Participants chose to either eat more healthy snacks (i.e., an approach goal) or eat fewer unhealthy snacks (i.e., an avoidance goal) over two weeks and were randomly assigned to create an implementation intention to do this or not. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The authors measured fat and calorie intake after one week and after two weeks. RESULTS: After two weeks, the participants who ate most unhealthily were those who pursued an avoidance goal and did not form an implementation intention. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that forming implementation intentions for avoidance goal pursuit can help people attain important health goals.     

Intention formation induces episodic inhibition of distracting stimuli

In two experiments we show that (a) distracting stimuli are inhibited after intention formation, (b) this inhibition is episodic rather than semantic in nature, and (c) inhibition of distracting stimuli is terminated once intentions are completed. In both experiments participants were asked to form an intention to press the space bar in response to six cues (i.e. intention cues). After intention formation we measured accessibility of intention cues, of words that are semantically related to the intention cues (i.e. related cues) and of semantically unrelated words (i.e. control cues). In Experiment 1, we obtained slower responses towards related cues compared with both intention cues and control cues in a recognition task, but not in a lexical decision task. In Experiment 2, we showed that inhibition of related cues is terminated after intention completion. Together these results are consistent with theorizing that inhibition of distracting (i.e. related) stimuli is functional for completing previously formed intentions, and give insight in the nature of inhibitory processes during goal pursuit.     

Prospective memory and aging: preserved spontaneous retrieval,but impaired deactivation,in older adults

Prospective remembering is partially supported by cue-driven spontaneous retrieval processes. We investigated spontaneous retrieval processes in younger and older adults by presenting prospective memory target cues during a lexical decision task following instructions that the prospective memory task was finished. Spontaneous retrieval was inferred from slowed lexical decision responses to target cues (i.e., intention interference). When the intention was finished, younger adults efficiently deactivated their intention, but the older adults continued to retrieve their intentions. Levels of inhibitory functioning were negatively associated with intention interference in the older adult group, but not in the younger adult group. These results indicate that normal aging might not compromise spontaneous retrieval processes but that the ability to deactivate completed intentions is impaired.