The selfish goal: Autonomously operating motivational structures as the proximate cause of human judgment and behavior

Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Volumn 37, Issue 2, 2014, Pages 121-135

  Huang, Julie Y ^a,b   Bargh, John A ^c  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO   (Canada)

^b STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c YALE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

autonomy; goals; inconsistency; individual behavior; motivation; priming; proximal; self; self interest; unconscious

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; AWARENESS; BEHAVIOR; CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK; DECISION MAKING; EGO DEVELOPMENT; GOAL ATTAINMENT; HUMAN; INFORMATION PROCESSING; MOTIVATION; SELF CONCEPT; ATTENTION; BEHAVIOR CONTROL; CONFLICT; CONSCIOUSNESS; EVOLUTION; MENTAL CAPACITY; NOMENCLATURE; PERCEPTION; PERSONAL AUTONOMY; PREDICTION; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; REVIEW; SELFISH GOAL MODEL; FEMALE; PHYSIOLOGY; PSYCHOLOGICAL MODEL;

AWARENESS; BEHAVIOR; FEMALE; GOALS; HUMANS; JUDGMENT; MODELS, PSYCHOLOGICAL; MOTIVATION;

EID: 84899699905     PISSN: 0140525X     EISSN: 14691825     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X13000290     Document Type: Article

References (6)

1. To Skinner (1953), goals were inferences made by actors or observers about variables responsible for behavior, and thus not a property of the behavior itself.
2. According to this view, knowing why a person is opening a door (e.g., to help a person whose arms are full of groceries) does not enhance objective descriptions of the person's physical behaviors (e.g., grasping the knob between the thumb and fingers; twisting the wrist and pushing with one's body weight).
3. In contrast, a different contemporary definition carves the unconscious along the dimension of awareness (e.g., Dehaene & Naccache 2001; Loftus & Klinger 1992).
4. Unconscious processes are seen as those that operate in the absence of conscious awareness of even the triggering environmental stimuli.
5. In our view, such definitions may inadvertently lead to impoverished views regarding the actual role of unconscious processes in daily life (as in "the dumb unconscious"; Loftus & Klinger 1992).
6. Unconscious evaluative, behavioral, and motivational processes very likely did not evolve to process solely subliminal-strength stimuli; they evolved and were selected for in terms of how well and adaptively they guided overt behavioral responses to stimuli of variable normal intensity and duration.