Huang & Bargh (H&B) provide powerful arguments for the claim that goals can be active and influence behavior outside of awareness. I concur fully. Indeed, I go further and claim that goals (as opposed to felt desires) are never conscious and always operate outside of awareness. For our access to our own goals and decisions is always interpretive in nature, much like our access to the goals of other people (Carruthers Reference Carruthers2011). H&B focus mostly on the ways in which unconscious goals can preempt conscious ones, however, and in their official statement of their view, they propose that behavior is always controlled by the strongest currently active goal. I suggest a complimentary perspective: goals can also cooperate or compromise outside of awareness, simultaneously shaping a single behavior (in cases of compromise in such a way as to partially satisfy each while fully satisfying none). For example, in answering a question, one might have the goal of saying honestly what one believes, but one might also have the goal of making a good impression on the questioner, or of enhancing one's own self-image. As a result, what, precisely, one says may be different from what one would have said had either one of these goals been active individually. I will illustrate and substantiate this claim with reference to the counterattitudinal essay paradigm used extensively by social psychologists studying so-called “cognitive dissonance.”
The basic finding in this literature is that participants induced to write an essay arguing for the opposite of what they believe will thereafter shift their expressed attitudes quite markedly (provided that their freedom of choice in writing the essay had been emphasized to them). For example, students who are known to be strongly opposed to a rise in tuition (as measured in an unrelated questionnaire taken some weeks previously, perhaps) will say that they are neutral on the issue, or even moderately in favor, after writing an essay under conditions of “free choice” arguing that tuition should be raised. For many years it was believed that writing a counterattitudinal essay induced a negative feeling (called “dissonance”) resulting from the perceived inconsistency between one's underlying attitude and one's freely undertaken behavior (Bem Reference Bem1967; Festinger Reference Festinger1957). But there is good reason to think that this explanation is incorrect. Although the negative emotional component of the account is well established (Elliot & Devine Reference Elliot and Devine1994), it turns out that similar shifts in expressed attitude can be caused by pro-attitude essay writing, provided that people believe their action is likely to be harmful. This was elegantly demonstrated by Scher and Cooper (Reference Scher and Cooper1989) who told participants of a newly discovered (but fictitious) “boomerang effect,” according to which essays read early in a sequence of messages would tend to have counterpersuasive effects. Hence, an essay arguing against a rise in tuition would be apt to induce the university committee dealing with the issue to raise tuition if that essay were read first or second in the series of essays they consult when considering the question. Under these conditions people who had written proattitudinal essays (arguing that tuition should not be raised) shifted their expressed attitudes quite markedly having learned that their essay would be read second, just as did those who wrote counterattitudinal essays (arguing that tuition should be raised) who learned that their essay would be read second-to-last.
The best explanation of these and many similar findings is as follows (Carruthers Reference Carruthers2011). People who have had their freedom of choice made salient to them appraise their essay-writing action as having been bad, and this makes them feel bad. When asked later about their attitudes on the topic, they rehearse the behavioral alternatives open to them in the manner of Damasio (Reference Damasio1994) and select the one that they appraise as presenting their action as not bad, thereby ameliorating their negative affective state. This will often involve saying something other than they believe. Indeed, people will embrace any one of a number of behavioral strategies to rid themselves of negative affect in these experiments, including not only shifting their expressed attitude on the subject matter of the essay, but also denying responsibility for the action or denigrating the importance of the issue. Moreover, they adopt the first such opportunity that is offered to them, and thereafter their responses to the remaining questions are unchanged (Gosling et al. Reference Gosling, Denizeau and Oberlé2006; Simon et al. Reference Simon, Greenberg and Brehm1995). As a result, it is implausible that any of their attitudes had really changed in advance of the questions being asked.
What happens, then, when free-choice participants in standard (nonboomerang) counterattitudinal essay-writing experiments are later questioned about their attitudes is this. The question activates their standing attitude (e.g., that raising tuition would be bad) while also activating the goal of saying what one believes, or saying what is true. This goal on its own would lead them to say “Strongly opposed.” But they also have the goal of making themselves feel better (or perhaps: the goal of presenting their previous action as having been a good one). This second goal on its own would lead them to say “Strongly in favor” (because in that case their action of arguing in support of a rise in tuition would be appraised positively, and not merely neutrally). But in fact participants tend to answer around the midpoint, thereby partly satisfying each goal while fully satisfying neither. Moreover, it is quite unlikely that either of these goals operates consciously. (For example, participants surely could not be aware of their attitude that raising tuition would be bad, or they would then be aware that their answer is a dishonest one, and this would make them feel worse, not better.)
I conclude, then, that not only do goals initiate behavior in ways that are unconscious, with some goals preempting the activity of others (as H&B claim), but sometimes competing goals can cooperate or compromise unconsciously; in the latter case, to the partial satisfaction of each.
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Huang & Bargh (H&B) provide powerful arguments for the claim that goals can be active and influence behavior outside of awareness. I concur fully. Indeed, I go further and claim that goals (as opposed to felt desires) are never conscious and always operate outside of awareness. For our access to our own goals and decisions is always interpretive in nature, much like our access to the goals of other people (Carruthers Reference Carruthers2011). H&B focus mostly on the ways in which unconscious goals can preempt conscious ones, however, and in their official statement of their view, they propose that behavior is always controlled by the strongest currently active goal. I suggest a complimentary perspective: goals can also cooperate or compromise outside of awareness, simultaneously shaping a single behavior (in cases of compromise in such a way as to partially satisfy each while fully satisfying none). For example, in answering a question, one might have the goal of saying honestly what one believes, but one might also have the goal of making a good impression on the questioner, or of enhancing one's own self-image. As a result, what, precisely, one says may be different from what one would have said had either one of these goals been active individually. I will illustrate and substantiate this claim with reference to the counterattitudinal essay paradigm used extensively by social psychologists studying so-called “cognitive dissonance.”
The basic finding in this literature is that participants induced to write an essay arguing for the opposite of what they believe will thereafter shift their expressed attitudes quite markedly (provided that their freedom of choice in writing the essay had been emphasized to them). For example, students who are known to be strongly opposed to a rise in tuition (as measured in an unrelated questionnaire taken some weeks previously, perhaps) will say that they are neutral on the issue, or even moderately in favor, after writing an essay under conditions of “free choice” arguing that tuition should be raised. For many years it was believed that writing a counterattitudinal essay induced a negative feeling (called “dissonance”) resulting from the perceived inconsistency between one's underlying attitude and one's freely undertaken behavior (Bem Reference Bem1967; Festinger Reference Festinger1957). But there is good reason to think that this explanation is incorrect. Although the negative emotional component of the account is well established (Elliot & Devine Reference Elliot and Devine1994), it turns out that similar shifts in expressed attitude can be caused by pro-attitude essay writing, provided that people believe their action is likely to be harmful. This was elegantly demonstrated by Scher and Cooper (Reference Scher and Cooper1989) who told participants of a newly discovered (but fictitious) “boomerang effect,” according to which essays read early in a sequence of messages would tend to have counterpersuasive effects. Hence, an essay arguing against a rise in tuition would be apt to induce the university committee dealing with the issue to raise tuition if that essay were read first or second in the series of essays they consult when considering the question. Under these conditions people who had written proattitudinal essays (arguing that tuition should not be raised) shifted their expressed attitudes quite markedly having learned that their essay would be read second, just as did those who wrote counterattitudinal essays (arguing that tuition should be raised) who learned that their essay would be read second-to-last.
The best explanation of these and many similar findings is as follows (Carruthers Reference Carruthers2011). People who have had their freedom of choice made salient to them appraise their essay-writing action as having been bad, and this makes them feel bad. When asked later about their attitudes on the topic, they rehearse the behavioral alternatives open to them in the manner of Damasio (Reference Damasio1994) and select the one that they appraise as presenting their action as not bad, thereby ameliorating their negative affective state. This will often involve saying something other than they believe. Indeed, people will embrace any one of a number of behavioral strategies to rid themselves of negative affect in these experiments, including not only shifting their expressed attitude on the subject matter of the essay, but also denying responsibility for the action or denigrating the importance of the issue. Moreover, they adopt the first such opportunity that is offered to them, and thereafter their responses to the remaining questions are unchanged (Gosling et al. Reference Gosling, Denizeau and Oberlé2006; Simon et al. Reference Simon, Greenberg and Brehm1995). As a result, it is implausible that any of their attitudes had really changed in advance of the questions being asked.
What happens, then, when free-choice participants in standard (nonboomerang) counterattitudinal essay-writing experiments are later questioned about their attitudes is this. The question activates their standing attitude (e.g., that raising tuition would be bad) while also activating the goal of saying what one believes, or saying what is true. This goal on its own would lead them to say “Strongly opposed.” But they also have the goal of making themselves feel better (or perhaps: the goal of presenting their previous action as having been a good one). This second goal on its own would lead them to say “Strongly in favor” (because in that case their action of arguing in support of a rise in tuition would be appraised positively, and not merely neutrally). But in fact participants tend to answer around the midpoint, thereby partly satisfying each goal while fully satisfying neither. Moreover, it is quite unlikely that either of these goals operates consciously. (For example, participants surely could not be aware of their attitude that raising tuition would be bad, or they would then be aware that their answer is a dishonest one, and this would make them feel worse, not better.)
I conclude, then, that not only do goals initiate behavior in ways that are unconscious, with some goals preempting the activity of others (as H&B claim), but sometimes competing goals can cooperate or compromise unconsciously; in the latter case, to the partial satisfaction of each.