PSYC 333 Midterm 2 Notes – Psychology course study and exam preparation
material
what are goals - ✔✔the object of a person's ambition or effort, aim or desired result, the end
towards which an effect is dedicated, an aim, internal representations of desired states, span
from momentary to life-long, cannot be understood in isolation
- predicting motivation to pursue goals; need (strength) and incentive value of goal object, if
these things are high, task will be successfully executed, and completing task will satisfy need
what are the dimensions of a goal that makes it more likely to be completed - ✔✔importance,
difficulty, specificity, and consciousness
what is the importance dimension of a goal (commitment/value) - ✔✔the value of a goal,
determined by; the centrality of it to one's self/one's self-definition, the # of higher order goals
that are served if we achieve this specific lower level goal (how many future goals does
achieving this one thing get us closer to), energy mobilization (how much energy we're willing to
put into goal)
- theory: the more means we have to achieve a specific goal, the less likely we are to commit to
any one particular mean to achieve this goal, if we only have one mean to achieve a specific
goal, we're more likely to commit to that one mean to pursue our goal
what is the difficulty level dimension of a goal (expectancy) - ✔✔our beliefs on how difficult a
goal is to achieve, a function of our personal agency beliefs (i.e. capabilities - self-efficacy,
personal resources) or probability of attainment (context-responsiveness of environment) ex. if
we have a job, getting high grades becomes a more difficult goal to attain
what is the specificity dimension of a goal - ✔✔people have intentions to achieve their goals,
not necessarily difficult, and important to us, but problem is acting on our intentions, not a lack
of motivation or undesirable expectancy-value calculations, we just don't know how to achieve
this goal, lack of specific knowledge, can solve this through channel factors (planning route,
mapping it out, etc.) specifically implementation intentions
,- not only does specificity tell us how to achieve a goal, it allows us to pick one response out of a
sea of competing responses when confronted w a situation, and allows us to pay attention to
opportunities for goal achievement that might have escaped our attention otherwise
what are implementation intentions (II's) - ✔✔very specific to a specific situation, when X
happens, I will perform Y, link anticipated opportunities in the future with specific goal-directed
responses, this specificity should increase rate of goal completion
exp: identify projects you want to achieve during break, 1 easy, 1 difficult, II's were only effective
for completion of difficult goal (no effect on easy goals, got completed w or w/o II's)
- problems: correlational study, II's correlate w goal completion, don't necessarily cause it,
maybe II's affect goal completion thru 3rd variable, also goal person chooses to do over break is
important to them, so would complete it regardless of II's
what was the better evidence for the effectiveness of II's on goal completion -
✔✔experimentally manipulated II's, and goal was not selected by participants themselves, was
chosen by researcher, "write a report about X-mas eve" for every participant, saw same result,
those who were randomly assigned to II's were more likely to complete the report, why? more
likely to initiate goal striving ("failing to get started"), shielding goal striving from other
influences ("getting derailed") and disengaging from failing course of action ("not calling a halt")
all bc II's increase accessibility of specified opportunities and automate goal-directed responses
what is the consciousness dimension of a goal - ✔✔assumed that goal pursuit involves
deliberate, conscious, wilful, intentional act, but goals are "dynamically conscious" - move in
and out of working memory, become scripted automatized over time if long held goals, this is
what II's try to do, automatize goals so they're not so difficult to achieve in the moment, many
goals present in memory but only a few are activated/cued in working memory (can't pursue all
our goals all the time)
what is the auto-motive goal model - ✔✔goals can be activated/triggered by environmental
stimuli, w/o conscious intent, choice, or being aware of the operation of the goal within a
situation, often times we pursue a goal outside of conscious awareness, w/o intent, some goals
never move into consciousness, let alone dynamically move in and out of it, this is more often
the cause than not
, - not automatons, this is actually adaptive; goals only become automatized when we're
frequently and consistently choosing that goal in that situation in the past, no longer give goal
conscious thought bc we've made the same decision in the same situation so many times, don't
need to consciously think about goal every time we encounter it bc we've encountered it so
many times, so it is adaptive to have it automatized
what is the theory of the pursuit of interpersonal goals - ✔✔automaticity occurs bc the person
has chosen frequently and consistently the same goal in past similar situations, situations can
include relationships and thus interpersonal goals can be automatically activated, activating
relationship representations activate relationship-specific goals (not generalized goals to all
relationships but the pursuit of specific goals for a specific relationship) which then guide
behaviour in a goal-congruent fashion ex. mother = goal to succeed, to make her proud,
classmate = goal of self-presentation, friend = goal of spending time together, helping, etc.
does goal strength moderate this effect, if goal of making mom proud is particularly strong in
one person, is this projection effect on Mark greater - ✔✔tested importance of "making mom
proud" goal, primed mom, asked people to generate as many words as possible from 5 letters,
those in which goal of making mom proud was strong made more words and performed better
on the task than those who indicated this goal wasn't important to them, prime only had an
effect for those who endorsed the goal of succeeding to make mom proud in their relationship
with their mother, those who didn't have this goal, didn't have activation of the relationship
influence their behaviour, only when situation cues the goal (like through a prime) do we see its
effect on behaviour
if we activate a specific relationship, does this activate the subsequent goal associated with it -
✔✔write about mom/friend, read about "Mark" and form impression, does activating a specific
relationship activate that particular goal (measured by the projection of that goal onto Mark, as
if that's what Mark is feeling), thought Mark was more motivated to succeed if primed w
mother (and subsequent relationship goal of wanting to succeed to make her proud) compared
to friend/control prime
what is the "my advisor is watching me" experiment - ✔✔when people were shown
smiling/accepting face of one advisor, they rated their ideas as better than if they were shown
the frowning face of another advisor, being primed with these different relationships (one more
material
what are goals - ✔✔the object of a person's ambition or effort, aim or desired result, the end
towards which an effect is dedicated, an aim, internal representations of desired states, span
from momentary to life-long, cannot be understood in isolation
- predicting motivation to pursue goals; need (strength) and incentive value of goal object, if
these things are high, task will be successfully executed, and completing task will satisfy need
what are the dimensions of a goal that makes it more likely to be completed - ✔✔importance,
difficulty, specificity, and consciousness
what is the importance dimension of a goal (commitment/value) - ✔✔the value of a goal,
determined by; the centrality of it to one's self/one's self-definition, the # of higher order goals
that are served if we achieve this specific lower level goal (how many future goals does
achieving this one thing get us closer to), energy mobilization (how much energy we're willing to
put into goal)
- theory: the more means we have to achieve a specific goal, the less likely we are to commit to
any one particular mean to achieve this goal, if we only have one mean to achieve a specific
goal, we're more likely to commit to that one mean to pursue our goal
what is the difficulty level dimension of a goal (expectancy) - ✔✔our beliefs on how difficult a
goal is to achieve, a function of our personal agency beliefs (i.e. capabilities - self-efficacy,
personal resources) or probability of attainment (context-responsiveness of environment) ex. if
we have a job, getting high grades becomes a more difficult goal to attain
what is the specificity dimension of a goal - ✔✔people have intentions to achieve their goals,
not necessarily difficult, and important to us, but problem is acting on our intentions, not a lack
of motivation or undesirable expectancy-value calculations, we just don't know how to achieve
this goal, lack of specific knowledge, can solve this through channel factors (planning route,
mapping it out, etc.) specifically implementation intentions
,- not only does specificity tell us how to achieve a goal, it allows us to pick one response out of a
sea of competing responses when confronted w a situation, and allows us to pay attention to
opportunities for goal achievement that might have escaped our attention otherwise
what are implementation intentions (II's) - ✔✔very specific to a specific situation, when X
happens, I will perform Y, link anticipated opportunities in the future with specific goal-directed
responses, this specificity should increase rate of goal completion
exp: identify projects you want to achieve during break, 1 easy, 1 difficult, II's were only effective
for completion of difficult goal (no effect on easy goals, got completed w or w/o II's)
- problems: correlational study, II's correlate w goal completion, don't necessarily cause it,
maybe II's affect goal completion thru 3rd variable, also goal person chooses to do over break is
important to them, so would complete it regardless of II's
what was the better evidence for the effectiveness of II's on goal completion -
✔✔experimentally manipulated II's, and goal was not selected by participants themselves, was
chosen by researcher, "write a report about X-mas eve" for every participant, saw same result,
those who were randomly assigned to II's were more likely to complete the report, why? more
likely to initiate goal striving ("failing to get started"), shielding goal striving from other
influences ("getting derailed") and disengaging from failing course of action ("not calling a halt")
all bc II's increase accessibility of specified opportunities and automate goal-directed responses
what is the consciousness dimension of a goal - ✔✔assumed that goal pursuit involves
deliberate, conscious, wilful, intentional act, but goals are "dynamically conscious" - move in
and out of working memory, become scripted automatized over time if long held goals, this is
what II's try to do, automatize goals so they're not so difficult to achieve in the moment, many
goals present in memory but only a few are activated/cued in working memory (can't pursue all
our goals all the time)
what is the auto-motive goal model - ✔✔goals can be activated/triggered by environmental
stimuli, w/o conscious intent, choice, or being aware of the operation of the goal within a
situation, often times we pursue a goal outside of conscious awareness, w/o intent, some goals
never move into consciousness, let alone dynamically move in and out of it, this is more often
the cause than not
, - not automatons, this is actually adaptive; goals only become automatized when we're
frequently and consistently choosing that goal in that situation in the past, no longer give goal
conscious thought bc we've made the same decision in the same situation so many times, don't
need to consciously think about goal every time we encounter it bc we've encountered it so
many times, so it is adaptive to have it automatized
what is the theory of the pursuit of interpersonal goals - ✔✔automaticity occurs bc the person
has chosen frequently and consistently the same goal in past similar situations, situations can
include relationships and thus interpersonal goals can be automatically activated, activating
relationship representations activate relationship-specific goals (not generalized goals to all
relationships but the pursuit of specific goals for a specific relationship) which then guide
behaviour in a goal-congruent fashion ex. mother = goal to succeed, to make her proud,
classmate = goal of self-presentation, friend = goal of spending time together, helping, etc.
does goal strength moderate this effect, if goal of making mom proud is particularly strong in
one person, is this projection effect on Mark greater - ✔✔tested importance of "making mom
proud" goal, primed mom, asked people to generate as many words as possible from 5 letters,
those in which goal of making mom proud was strong made more words and performed better
on the task than those who indicated this goal wasn't important to them, prime only had an
effect for those who endorsed the goal of succeeding to make mom proud in their relationship
with their mother, those who didn't have this goal, didn't have activation of the relationship
influence their behaviour, only when situation cues the goal (like through a prime) do we see its
effect on behaviour
if we activate a specific relationship, does this activate the subsequent goal associated with it -
✔✔write about mom/friend, read about "Mark" and form impression, does activating a specific
relationship activate that particular goal (measured by the projection of that goal onto Mark, as
if that's what Mark is feeling), thought Mark was more motivated to succeed if primed w
mother (and subsequent relationship goal of wanting to succeed to make her proud) compared
to friend/control prime
what is the "my advisor is watching me" experiment - ✔✔when people were shown
smiling/accepting face of one advisor, they rated their ideas as better than if they were shown
the frowning face of another advisor, being primed with these different relationships (one more
