Nonconscious Goal Pursuit -- 1

Consequences of Automatic Goal Pursuit and The Case of Nonconscious Mimicry

Tanya L. Chartrand Valerie E. Jefferis

Ohio State University

Authors’ note: Chapter to appear in J. P. Forgas, K. D. Williams, & W. von Hippel (Eds.), Responding to the social world: Implicit and explicit processes in social judgments and decisions. Philadelphia: PsychologyCambridge University Press. Tanya L. Chartrand and Valerie E. Jefferis, Department of Psychology, Ohio State University, 1885 Neil Avenue Mall, Columbus, OH, 43210. Address correspondence to either author at or . The preparation of this manuscript was partially supported by a grant from the National Institute for Mental Health (R03 MH65250-01) to the first author.

What sets goal pursuit into motion? Perhaps the most intuitively appealing and compelling answer is that we do. We deliberate among our various desires and decide to pursue a particular goal in a particular social situation. We determine which strategies will best serve us in attaining the goal, engage in goal-directed behavior and plans of action, and evaluate our progress made toward the goal (Gollwitzer, 1990; Heckhausen, 1991). Thus, intuition tells us that goal pursuit is started in motion by our conscious will, and that it is a deliberate, intentional process. Reflecting this, most models of self-regulation posit continuous, conscious choice and guidance as a central feature, if not the core foundation, of goal pursuit (Bandura, 1986, 1997; Cantor & Kihlstrom, 1987; Carver & Scheier, 1981; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Dweck, 1996; Locke & Latham, 1990; Mischel, Cantor, & Feldman, 1996).

However, goal pursuit does not always involve deliberate direction of goal-driven behavior. Like other automatic processes discussed in this volume (Brewer; Forgas; Galinsky & Martorana; Haselton & Buss; McClure, Sutton, & Hilton; von Hippel, Vargas, & Sekaquaptewa; Williams, Case, & Govan, all this volume), sometimes goal pursuit occurs outside of one’s awareness, intent, and even control. Social environments automatically activate goals frequently associated with them in the past, and these goals then operate to guide information processing and behavior without conscious intervention (Chartrand & Bargh, 2002). Theoretical interest in nonconscious goal pursuit began more than a decade ago (Bargh, 1990), and supporting research soon followed.

A 3-Stage Model of Nonconscious Goal Pursuit

In the current chapter, we would like to propose that nonconscious goal pursuit can be divided at both the conceptual and empirical level into three stages: (a) the environment automatically activates associated goals and motives, (b) individuals pursue goals they are not aware of having, and (c) individuals succeed and fail at nonconsciously- pursued goals, and this has downstream consequences.

Stage 1: Direct Situation-Goal Linkages

The first proposed stage assumes that goals are mentally represented in memory just as schemas, attitudes, stereotypes, and other social constructs are (see Bargh, 1990). Previous research has demonstrated that constructs represented in memory can become automatically activated by stimuli that have been associated with them in the past, and thus goal representations should also be capable of this automatic activation. If one frequently and consistently chooses a certain goal whenever he or she is in a certain situation, then eventually the goal representation and the representation of the triggering situation become linked in memory. Once this association is formed, then merely being in that situation will nonconsciously and automatically activate the associated goal, regardless of any conscious intentions the individual may have at the time.

This first stage has received empirical support. In a recent study by Spencer, Fein, Wolfe, Fong, and Dunn (1998, Experiment 3), participants were given either positive or negative feedback on a bogus intelligence test, and then, while under a cognitive load, subliminally primed with either drawings of African-American or European-American faces. The researchers found that participants who were given a blow to their self-esteem via the negative feedback were more likely to have stereotypes automatically activated if they had been primed with African-American faces. These results are particularly interesting given that cognitive load has been shown in past research to inhibit stereotype activation (Gilbert & Hixon, 1991;Spencer et al., 1998, Experiment 2). Importantly for the present discussion, the results suggest that a threat to one’s self-image (triggering situation) can automatically activate an associated goal to restore the self-esteem.

There has been other research showing that individuals in certain subpopulations can have goals activated by various situations. For instance, among individuals who have a chronic egalitarian goal, the presence of a minority group member can automatically activate the goal to be fair (Moskowitz, Gollwitzer, Wasel, & Schaal, 1999). Moreover, for men high in the tendency to sexually harass, being in a situation of relative power can trigger sex-related goals (Bargh, Raymond, Pryor, & Strack, 1995). The same situation of power can furthermore activate social responsibility goals for individuals with communal orientations, and power-abuse goals for those with exchange orientations (Chen, Lee-Chai, & Bargh, 2001; Lee-Chai, Chen, & Chartrand, 2001). In sum, there is substantial evidence for the idea that social environments can automatically activate associated goals in memory.

Stage 2: Pursuit of Goals without Awareness

There is also evidence supporting the second proposed stage of nonconscious goal pursuit -- that nonconscious goals, once activated, guide subsequent cognition and behavior just like their conscious counterparts. Individuals are neither aware of the goal activation itself, nor of the goal’s subsequent guiding role. In a direct investigation of nonconscious goal pursuit, Chartrand and Bargh (1996, Study 1) replicated a study in which participants were given conscious goals to either memorize information or form an impression of a target, and were then exposed to sentence predicates that fell into four trait categories (Hamilton, Katz, & Leirer, 1980). In the original study, participants were given a surprise free recall test, and results revealed that those given the goal to form an impression recalled more of the predicates and clustered them more by trait category. Chartrand and Bargh replicated this, but gave participants no conscious goals. Instead, they primed participants with either an impression formation goal or a memorization goal, asked them to read the series of behavioral predicates, and then gave them a surprise free recall test. Replicating the results of the original study, Chartrand and Bargh (1996) found that participants who were primed with an impression formation goal were more likely to (a) recall more behaviors, and (b) organize the behaviors according to trait category, compared to those primed with a memorization goal. Importantly, none of the participants were aware during the study of having a goal to memorizeinformation or to form an impression. Thus, they pursued these goals nonconsciously (see also Séquin & Pelletier, 2001).

Bargh, Gollwitzer, Lee-Chai, Barndollar, and Trötschel (2002) recently conducted a series of studies that tested for the presence of motivational states during nonconscious goal pursuit. Specifically, there are unique motivational qualities that have previously been reserved to describe conscious goal pursuit (e.g., Atkinson & Birch, 1970;Bandura, 1986;Gollwitzer, 1990;Lewin, 1951). Bargh et al. (2002) found that, like conscious goals, nonconscious goals increase in strength over time, lead to persistence when participants encounter obstacles during their goal pursuit, and lead to resumption of goal-directed behaviors following interruptions. In fact, there is now neurophysiological evidence that the pursuit of conscious and nonconscious evaluative goals invoke extremely similar brain patterns (Gardner, Bargh, Shellman, & Bessenoff, 2001), suggesting that once activated, people can pursue nonconscious goals as they do conscious goals.

Stage 3: Consequences of Success and Failure at Nonconscious Goal Pursuit

The third proposed stage of nonconscious goal pursuit concerns the consequences that it can engender. Once goals have been put in motion, people then succeed or fail at them, just as they do consciously activated goals. Evidence suggests that success or failure at nonconscious goals can have important “downstream” consequences, including effects on mood and self-enhancement.

Consequences for mood. Chartrand (2002) explored the effects of succeeding and failing at nonconscious goals for mood. In a first experiment, participants completed a scrambled sentence task, which served as an achievement prime for half of the participants and a neutral prime for the other half of the participants. This was followed by a set of anagram puzzles that was described as a “fun filler task”. The puzzles were accompanied by information concerning their “average” completion time, and the puzzles were either very easy or very difficult to complete in this amount of time. This manipulation led participants to either “succeed” or “fail” at the achievement goal without giving them explicit feedback, which would have brought their performance to their conscious attention. Participants were then asked to report their current mood. The results indicated that those who were given the easy anagram task reported a more positive mood than those who were given the difficult version, but only when they had been primed with an achievement goal. When participants had completed the neutral version of the scrambled sentence task, and thus did not have an achievement goal, no mood differences were found between participants who completed the easy anagram task and those who completed the difficult version. Importantly, post-experimental interviews confirmed that participants were not aware of having a conscious achievement goal during the study, and thus the goal was indeed nonconscious.

A second experiment (Chartrand, 2002) replicated these mood effects using a subliminal rather than a supraliminal priming technique as well as a different goal -- impression formation. A conscious goal condition was also included to compare the consequences of conscious and nonconscious goal pursuit. Specifically, participants completed a parafoveal vigilance task in which words related to impression formation (or neutral words in the control conditions) were presented subliminally. Participants in the conscious goal condition received additional explicit instructions to form an impression of the target person. All participants then listened to a recording of a description of the target person, which would allow participants to act on their impression formation goal, if they in fact had such a goal. Success or failure at this goal was manipulated by the description. The target person was described as performing either consistent or inconsistent behaviors, making it either easy or difficult to form a coherent impression of the target. Results indicated that participants who had an impression formation goal, regardless of whether it was given through explicit instruction or subliminal priming, reported being in a better mood when they had received the consistent description (and had presumably succeeded at their impression formation goal) than when they received the inconsistent description (and had presumably failed). Mood did not vary as a result of the description when participants did not have a goal to form an impression. Importantly, post-experimental interviews indicated that participants who were primed with the goal did not have a conscious goal to form an impression.

Thus, success and failure at nonconscious goals can affect mood in much the same way as success and failure at conscious goals do. However, unlike with conscious goal pursuit, one cannot link the consequences of success and failure with a consciously experienced goal. These “mystery moods” that result from nonconscious goal pursuit may be qualitatively different from moods that result from conscious goal pursuit. Recent findings suggest that negative mystery moods do indeed have distinct consequences from negative understood moods.

Consequences for self-enhancement: Conscious versus nonconscious goal pursuit. Tesser and his colleagues (Tesser, 2000, 2001; Tesser, Crepaz, Collins, Cornell, & Beach, 2000; Tesser, Martin, and Cornell, 1996) have argued that self-enhancement strategies are invoked when a negative mood of unknown origin is experienced. A series of studies by Chartrand, Cheng, and Tesser (2002) examined the relationship between mystery moods and self-enhancement.

A first study measured self-enhancement by assessing the extent to which participants created self-serving definitions of success (Dunning, Leuenberger, & Sherman, 1995). Participants were given an achievement goal either through a Scrambled Sentence Task (nonconscious goal condition) or through explicit instructions (conscious goal condition), or they were given no goal. They then completed a “fun filler task” of anagrams, during which the experimenter casually mentioned the “average” completion time. The time that the experimenter mentioned was in fact an underestimate of the time the task would take, thus leading the participants to fail at the achievement goal. Participants then read a description of a target person who had been in a successful marriage for 25 years. The description included various attributes of the person, and participants rated the contribution of each attribute to the person’s success. They then completed a survey that asked them about their own attributes, which included the attributes of the target person. The results indicated that those who failed at a nonconscious goal were the most likely to create self-serving definitions of success, as measured by rating the qualities that they share with the successful target person as more important than the qualities that they do not share. Those who failed at a conscious goal created moderately self-serving definitions of success, while those who had no goal created the least self-serving definitions.

This first study supported the hypothesis that mystery moods lead to self-enhancement. They It also supports the notion that the consequences of nonconscious goal pursuit are not always the same as the consequences of conscious goal pursuit. However, because all of the participants in the study failed to meet their achievement goal, the possibility remained that mystery moods in general, rather than only negative mystery moods, led to the increased self-enhancement. Thus, a conceptual replication of study 1 was done to examine whether it is the mysteriousness of the mood or the valence of the mood that leads to self-enhancement. Participants were once again given a conscious goal, a nonconscious goal, or no goal. This was followed by information that led them to either succeed or fail at the goal, if they had one. Self-enhancement was again measured by examining self-serving biases. The results indicated that only those who failed, not those who succeeded, engaged in self-enhancement.

Two additional studies by Chartrand et al. (2002) concerned potential moderating factors of the link between negative mystery moods and self-enhancement. Experiment 3 examined the effect of expressing the negative mood and thus being made aware of it. A different measure of self-enhancement was also used. Recent research suggests that stereotyping may function as a self-enhancement technique (e.g., Fein & Spencer, 1997). Thus, Study 3 measured self-enhancement using the Stereotypic Explanatory Bias scale, an implicit measure of stereotyping (von Hippel, Sekaquaptewa, & Vargas, 1997). Participants were led to fail at a conscious goal, a nonconscious goal, or no goal to achieve. Half of the participants then completed a questionnaire that instructed them to think about the experiment and indicate how the different tasks made them feel, while the other half of the participants completed a filler task. The questionnaire presumably allowed participants to express their mood and led them to consider the reasons for it. Lastly, the implicit stereotyping measure was administered. The results replicated studies 1 and 2, in that failing at a nonconscious goal, as opposed to a conscious goal or no goal, led to greater self-enhancement, in this case evidenced by greater stereotyping. This replicated the findings from Experiment 1 that suggest that there are different downstream consequences of failing at conscious versus nonconscious goals. Importantly, however, this effect was eliminated when participants understood the source of their mood. Participants who completed the questionnaire concerning their mood and its source did not stereotype more than participants who had a conscious goal or no goal. Furthermore, there were no significant differences in stereotyping as a result of the mood questionnaire for participants who had a conscious goal or no goal.

Experiment 4 (Chartrand et al., 2002) sought to examine the mechanism through which the mood awareness manipulation in Experiment 3 was able to attenuate the self-enhancement effect. Participants in that study were able to both express their mood and explore its source. It was therefore unclear whether it is the presence of an attribution or the expression of the mood that is most crucial. Participants in Study 4 either failed at a nonconscious goal or were given no goal. During half of the experimental sessions, the experimenter casually said to the group after the failure manipulation, “You guys look dull. For some reason, everybody’s in a bad mood after this task. It must be that long computer task….” and then proceeded with instructions for the next task. The other half of the sessions only received instructions for the next task. The experimenter’s comment served as a way to provide the participants with an attribution for their mood without allowing them to express it. Participants then completed a self-enhancement measure. The results indicated that those who failed at a nonconscious goal were only more likely to self-enhance when they were not provided with an attribution for their mood. The attribution attenuated self-enhancement in the nonconscious goal failure conditions, but had no effect when participants did not have a goal. Thus, the results indicate that understanding the source of a negative mystery mood, rather than expressing it, lead to less self-enhancement.