Seven Principles of Goal Activation: A Systematic Approach to Distinguishing Goal Priming From Priming of Non-Goal Constructs

Abstract

Countless studies have recently purported to demonstrate effects of goal priming; however, it is difficult to muster unambiguous support for the claims of these studies because of the lack of clear criteria for determining whether goals, as opposed to alternative varieties of mental representations, have indeed been activated. Therefore, the authors offer theoretical guidelines that may help distinguish between semantic, procedural, and goal priming. Seven principles that are hallmarks of self-regulatory processes are proposed: Goal-priming effects (a) involve value, (b) involve postattainment decrements in motivation, (c) involve gradients as a function of distance to the goal, (d) are proportional to the product of expectancy and value, (e) involve inhibition of conflicting goals, (f) involve self-control, and (g) are moderated by equifinality and multifinality. How these principles might help distinguish between automatic activation of goals and priming effects that do not involve goals is discussed.

No pain no gain? Pursuing a competing goal inhibits avoidance behavior

“…This refers to the mechanism that commitment to a valuable goal inhibits the accessibility of conflicting goals and protects task behavior against habitual interferences and irrelevant distracters [3,10,20,30,31]. Our self-report data show that financially rewarding performance of the pain task significantly increased the value of the goal to perform this task.…”

“…More specifically, when making behavioural decisions, the value and probability of success of the various options influence choice [7,9,14]. Furthermore, it has been proposed that engagement to a goal (i.e., performing the task to increase monetary reward) leads to inhibition of conflicting goals (i.e., avoiding the task to prevent pain) [10,20,25]. This view can be easily applied to pain-related avoidance behavior observed in the present study: although fear of the pain stimulus was equally high in both groups, avoidance behavior was reduced when a competing goal was pursued.…”

“…Such theories argue that choices (e.g., avoiding versus persisting a pain-evoking activity) may have both outcome benefits (e.g., preventing pain increase) and costs (e.g., loss of social contact), and that the value and probability of success of the various options influence decisions [7,9,14,26]. Of particular interest is the idea of "goal shielding", which refers to the mechanism that commitment to a focal goal inhibits the accessibility of conflicting goals and protects behavior against habitual interferences [3,10,20,30,31].…”

On the representation of intentions: Do personally relevant consequences determine activation?

“…Initial activation and subsequent inhibition may have led to response latencies comparable to those for new distractor words. Inhibiting information associated with the canceled task may be adaptive in order to avoid an accidental initiation of task execution when intentions become impossible to complete (e.g., going to stop at a library to borrow a book beyond opening hours) (for a more detailed discussion of inhibitory processes, see Förster et al, 2007).…”

“…Thus, the intention-superiority effect would be due to a rich multimodal representation of intentions, as compared with verbal representations (for similar reasoning, see, e.g., Engelkamp, 1997;Koriat, Ben-Zur, & Nussbaum, 1990). Finally, intentions are related to motivational states, and thus the strength of the intention may determine the accessibility of intention-related concepts (e.g., Förster, Liberman, & Friedman, 2007;Förster, Liberman, & Higgins, 2005). Thus, the intention-superiority effect could reflect the participant's degree of commitment to realizing the intention.…”