Individual differences in intention initiation under demanding conditions: Interactive effects of state vs. action orientation and enactment difficulty

The present research examines individual differences in intention initiation. State- compared to action-oriented persons show an intention superiority effect for the cognitive representation of intentions [Goschke, T., & Kuhl, J. (1993). Representation of intentions: Persisting activation in memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 19, 1211–1226], but at the same time have a paradoxical deficit in initiating and carrying them out under demanding conditions. The present two experiments focus on intention initiation. Experiment 1 used a modified event-based paradigm of prospective memory, pre-cuing prospective actions with words varying in association to the target word. State-oriented participants had longer latencies in initiating uncued compared to precued actions under low-positive affect (high listlessness). In Experiment 2, we used a key-pressing task under high vs. low cognitive load (uncompleted vs. completed intention). State-oriented participants under high load had longer latencies when they chose by themselves which of two goals to pursue, compared to an External-Cue condition. Action-oriented participants showed efficient performance in each experiment. The intention-initiation deficit of state-oriented participants was related to higher levels of listlessness (first experiment) or to high load (second experiment) suggesting that motivational factors interact with volitional impairments. These results are interpreted in terms of Personality Systems Interaction theory (Kuhl, 2000).