Implicit Motivation and Adaptation of Goals and Experiences Henk Aarts Department of Psychology

2. Implicit Motivation and Adaptation of Goals and Experiences Henk Aarts Department of Psychology Utrecht University

3. The issue under investigation 1. Our goal pursuits can originate in the unconscious Goal priming; executive processes …?? • Conscious experiences of willful goal pursuit exist: Sense of agency 2. From nonconscious goals to experiences of willful goal pursuit (agency assessment) …??

4. Goal priming: Positive affect as implicit motivator Goals need to be desired to operate as motivational forces Nonconscious will Implicit intention Implicit volition Unconscious self If positive affect follows representation of behavior/outcome: • May operate as a nonconscious goal Two possible roles for positive affect (valence): - co-activation of goal representation and positive affect - established association between goal and positive affect

5. Study (Effort) Method: separate experiments paradigm • Dot detection: pos. affect linked or not (puzzle goal) • Instructions for next experiment (mouse-click task) • Puzzle task (if sufficient time left) • One group (no linking) conscious goal • DV: speed on mouse-click task (more effort – being faster – is instrumental to engage in doing a puzzle)

6. Study (Effort) fixation point 500 ms premask 500 ms pgudehnk non-word/state word 30 ms pruvket/puzzle postmask 150 ms time pgudehnk neutral/positive word 150 ms although/pleasant . blank 30 ms dot or not? 30 ms

7. Study (Effort) Speed as a function of goal type (Custers, & Aarts, JPSP, 2005)

8. Goal priming: Positive affect as implicit motivator More support: - More wanting - More behavioral effort - Accentuated size perception - Active maintenance Effects conditional on priming and link with positive affect Nonconscious goal pursuit: emergent property of interaction of goal representation and positive affect

9. Experienced willfulness of goal pursuit Control models: Agency arises from match between expected/actual action-effect Normal: intention to cause effect by action Wegner: Not always the case. It may be illusory  Priming (consistent) thought before action/effect enhances sense of agency - Unconscious authorship processing Several demo’s (e.g., Wegner & Wheatley; Aarts, Custers, & Wegner)

13. Aarts, Custers, & Wegner, C&C, 2005

14. Aarts, Custers, & Wegner, C&C, 2005 - Subliminal primes Agency rating (10 point scale)

15. Experienced willfulness of goal pursuit However, it only seems to work when thought is primed just before action (e.g., stop) and observed result (e.g., position) Pure perceptual/cognitive …?? What about nonconscious goal pursuit: • What happens when the thought turns into a motive or desired goal

16. From nonconscious goals to the conscious experience of willful goal pursuit Three experiments: - Task that requires an action producing a potential effect (color spectrum task) - Effect could be caused by participant or computer - Priming effect information, and playing around with timing and affect - Agency ratings

17. Study (priming and timing) • Design: priming color (no vs. yes) x timing of priming before action (1 sec. vs 20 sec.) • Priming event: prime (30 ms) mask (150 ms) • Primes were “XXXXX” or a “colorword” and masks were random letter strings; the priming event occurred 3 times • DV: agency rating on 9 point scale.

18. Task (the hidden color spectrum task) ( a random string of letters) Prime event (20 sec.) Prime event (1 sec.) Key-press Effect (color) Agency rating

19. Study (Priming and timing) Agency as a function of priming and timing

20. Study (priming and positive Affect) • Only at 20 sec. before key-press • Design: prime, pos. affect or prime+pos. affect (within participants) • Prime: prime, mask, xxx, mask, xxx, mask (7 x). • Pos. affect: xxx, mask, affect, mask, xxx, mask (7 x) • Prime/pos.affect: prime, mask, affect, mask, xxx, mask (7x) • Affective words: e.g., nice, fun (also 30 ms) • DV: agency rating

21. Task (the hidden color spectrum task) ( a random string of letters) Prime event (20 sec.) Key-press Effect (color) Agency rating

22. Study (priming and positive Affect) Agency as a function of priming and affect

23. Study (priming and positive Affect: After) • More agency because effect more positive or because operates as goal in guiding behavior • Test: prime+pos. affect after key-press and effect information • Always before agency rating • Design: no prime, prime before, or prime+pos. affect after (within participants)

24. Study (priming and positive Affect: After) • No prime: before: xxx, mask, xxx, mask, xxx, mask (7x) after: xxx, mask, affect, mask, xxx, mask (7x) • Prime: before: prime, mask, xxx, mask, xxx, mask (7x) after: xxx, mask, affect, mask, xxx, mask (7x) • Prime/pos. affect: before: xxx, mask, xxx, mask, xxx, mask (7x) after: prime, mask, affect, mask, xxx, mask (7x)

25. Task (the hidden color spectrum task) ( a random string of letters) Prime event Prime event (pos.affect) Key-press Effect (color) Agency rating

26. Study (priming and positive Affect: After) Agency as a function of prime-time and pos. affect

27. Summary • 1. Linking goal to positive affect turns into motive • 2. Instigates nonconscious goal operation processes • 3. Match between accessible goal information (potential effect) and observed effect: agency • 4. Guiding/experiencing goal pursuit relies on similar mechanism: nonconscious executive processes emerging from interactions of goal representation and positive affect