nucleation

QUESTION-314: Is the response an implementation intention specifies gated by the goal intention it serves, so that with the goal deactivated or weak the cue alone does not produce it, and does the gate survive the plan's being acted on many times?

2 min read

Properties5
StatusOpen
Tagsmotivation, behavioral-integration, self-governance
Linewill-organization
RefinesQUESTION-088 — Does modelling psychological organization as processes that allocate influence to one another predict habit, rumination, rigidity, akrasia and insight better, with one shared set of organizational variables, than models built for each phenomenon or around a central executive?
Cited as “bears on” byTHEORY-1176 — Implementation intentions affect performance only when the goal intention they serve is strong and activated, so the cue-triggered response is gated by the goal and does not fire on the cue alone, THEORY-904 — Gollwitzer and Sheeran (2006) conclude, narratively from a handful of studies that measured or manipulated the goal intention, that implementation intentions affect performance only when the goal intention they serve is strong and activated, so the planned response is not elicited mechanically by its cue; in 2024, across eight tests, plan effects were larger with strong, activated or self-concordant goal intentions than with weak, unactivated or self-discordant ones (d = .79 for the difference), and in 31 physical-activity tests split at the median of intention, planning helped with strong intentions (d = .31) and had no effect with weak ones (d ≈ 0)

Graph View

Why it is a question

THEORY-904 holds that Gollwitzer and Sheeran (2006) conclude, from a handful of studies, that plans affect performance only with a strong and activated goal intention, and that the 2024 review found plan effects larger with strong goal intentions than with weak ones, by a between-test difference of d = .79 over eight tests. Neither is a test in which the plan effect is absent with the goal deactivated, in a sample that could show such a null. And the authors leave open what happens once the plan has been acted on many times, where a habit could fire without the goal.

This bears on CLAIM-443’s distinction between a prior over actions and a prior over which process governs: a cached mapping licensed by an active goal is a third arrangement between them.

What would answer it

A test that crosses plan against no plan with the goal intention activated against deactivated, or strong against weak, measured or manipulated before the cue arrives, in samples large enough for a null in the weak or deactivated cells, finding the plan effect present only with the goal; preferably repeated after the plan has been acted on many times, since repetition is where a cue-triggered response could come loose from its goal. The gate is refuted if planned responses run as strongly with the goal deactivated, or if after repetition they fire regardless. Between-test comparisons of motivation in a meta-analysis cannot settle it.

Backlinks