Environmental control of social goals: using Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer to test cue-based pro-self and pro-social outcome responses

Abstract

A large amount of literature demonstrates that social behaviour can be triggered by environmental cues. A long-standing debate involves the question of whether such stimuli trigger behaviour directly (i.e. habits) or whether these effects mediate goals. As studies on automatic goal pursuit typically use real-world cues that are already associated with the behaviour and potentially the goal, it is impossible to make strong claims about the nature of the effects. In the present paper, we use a paradigm inspired by the Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) literature to examine how the environment can trigger goal-directed behaviour. Building on the essence of pro-self and pro-social motives in humans, two experiments explored the PIT effect when the outcomes were framed in terms of self- versus other-interest. Participants performed actions to earn money for themselves or a charity. Each outcome was linked to a different cue. The results showed that a cue predictive of self-interest outcomes facilitated responses instrumental in gaining the outcome, while such specific PIT effect for other-interest outcomes only emerged when participants were free to donate the money. We briefly discuss these findings reflecting on whether the PIT effect in our paradigm is indeed sensitive to the value of social goals.

How the environment evokes actions that lead to different goals: the role of object multi-functionality in pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer

“…The snack picture displayed the word 'NOW or 'HOME to support participants in keeping the single vs. multi-functional outcome in mind. To encourage participants to process the outcome information carefully, they had to speak out 'snack for now' or 'snack for home' upon seeing the snack (Qin et al, 2021(Qin et al, , 2023, for a similar procedure). The experimenter noted whether participants spoke out the correct outcome at the moment.…”

“…We trimmed the RT data of correct responses in the test phase for outliers as in previous studies (Qin et al, 2021(Qin et al, , 2023. Specifically, RTs from incorrect responses and RTs that were slower or faster than 3 SD of the participants' mean were removed from analyses (4.6% of the RT data).…”

“…In the present paper, we test an important prediction based on the notion that cues can motivate and control goaldirected behavior: If such motivational control is dependent on the value of the outcome, such control should be stronger for more valuable outcomes. While value has been successfully manipulated before (Qin et al, 2021(Qin et al, , 2023 using the monetary reward of different value (e.g., 5 vs. 50 cents coins), here we focus on a universal property of outcomes: the fact that outcomes can satisfy multiple needs or higher order goals (i.e., multifinality; Kruglanski et al, 2002). For instance, although a specific action could be regarded as producing a single outcome (e.g., obtaining a snack to satisfy one's appetite), actions can also be perceived as being instrumental in satisfying different needs or attaining multiple goals (e.g., obtaining a snack can satisfy appetite but can also serve as a present for a friend).…”

“…Testing this effect is crucial since it sheds light on how an individual's representation of outcomes plays a role in the environmental control of goal-directed behavior. Human beings can pursue more abstract or high-level goals, and such processes can also be guided by environmental cues (also see: Qin et al, 2023). Here we investigate this higher level of abstraction by focusing on actions that are instrumental in obtaining outcomes that are desirable in multiple ways.…”

“…Specifically, we test whether cues referring to objects presented as multi-versus single-functional evoke stronger PIT effects, which represent stronger goal-directed behavior facilitated by cues (Mahlberg et al, 2021). Specifically, we relied on the cuebased forced-choice response time PIT paradigm (Qin et al, 2021(Qin et al, , 2023 to test response facilitation upon exposure to outcome cues. First, participants were taught to press two different keys (left or right) to earn a snack they liked in the instrumental learning phase.…”