Goal ≠ Intent: Goal-Directed Thought and Behavior Are Often Unintentional Author(s): John A. Bargh Source: Psychological Inquiry, Vol. 1, No. 3 (1990), pp. 248-251 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1449760 . Accessed: 16/02/2011 10:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=taylorfrancis. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Psychological Inquiry. http://www.jstor.org Psychological Inquiry Copyright 1990 by 1990, Vol. 1, No. 3, 248-277 LawrenceErlbaum Associates, Inc. COMMENTARIES Goal 7 Intent: Goal-DirectedThought and BehaviorAre Often Unintentional John A. Bargh New YorkUniversity Here I focus on two key features of Lewis's proposed mation-processing models of behavior have also been ex- model of intentionality:(a) that an individual's(adult as well plicit in hypothesizing a close connection between environ- as infant) behaviormay be driven by goal-systems activated mental features and behavioralgoals. Miller, Galanter,and directly by environmentalevents and (b) the implicationsof Pribram(1960) relatedthe operationof well-learnedplans in this nonconscious goal activation for the concept of inten- response to environmentalcues to that of innate animal in- tionality. The essential point for which I argue is that in the stincts, contending that "the description of the conditions courseof his interestingand valuableanalysis of the develop- underwhich various skilled componentswill be triggered,or ment of intentionality,Lewis has unnecessarilyassumed an released, is much the same in both cases" (p. 82). And in equivalence between the concepts of intentional and goal their detailed models of how goals and intentions become directed, an assumptionthat is contradictedby a substantial activatedto then guide and control behavior,both Wilensky body of researchon unintendedthought and action. (1983) and Normanand Shallice (1986) called for frequently used internalgoal representationsto be vigilant for the pres- Automatic Activation of Internal Goal ence of events in the environmentrelevant to them, the occur- Representations by Environmental Stimuli rence of which would activatetheir control of perceptionand behavior. In his targetarticle, Lewis takes exception to Piaget (e.g., Others have argued for environmentallydriven goal ac- 1936/1952) and other theorists who have denied inten- tivationon functionalgrounds: that to deal with the complex- tionality to infants' behavior.Lewis proposeda model of the ity of the environment, especially the social environment, developmentof intention, correspondingroughly to levels of one needs to quickly understandthe goals and motives of the increasingawareness of the intentionitself. The humanorga- person or people one is dealing with, and to respond (both nism is said to advance from a lack of awareness of the reactively and proactively) with appropriategoals and plans intended outcome (as in reflex movements, breathing), to of one's own (see Schank & Abelson, 1977; Simon, 1967). possessing explicit goals and plans but which are environ- People seem naturallyto encode and understandthe behavior mentally activated, to being able to consciously and inter- of others in terms of their intentions and goals (Read & nally activate goals and plans. A subtle but provocativefea- Miller, 1989; Trzebinski, 1989); for example, Brewerand his tureof the model is that an adultis capableof all five of these colleagues (Brewer& Dupree, 1983; Lichtenstein& Brewer, levels of intentionality. It is not the case that as the child 1980) found that what people rememberedbest over time moves through the levels that he or she is primarilyat one about anotherperson's behavior was not the actual behavior level of intentionality(perhaps with some backsliding),until so much as the person's overall intentions. This immediate achieving the fifth and final (mature)rung. Instead, the vari- categorizationof the other's intents and goals, especially as ous levels are discussed as capabilities, so that under the they affect oneself, enables the quick adoptionof an appro- model an adult's awarenessof the goal currentlydriving his priateresponse strategy.In real-timesocial interaction,there or her behaviormay vary from none at all to complete. Lewis is usually little time to contemplate goals and plans, but specifies a mechanism for such environmentallyactivated rathera need for quick thought and action (Rothbart,1981). goals: the repeatedassociation of particulargoals and actions Thus, it is highly likely that with sufficient experience in a with particularenvironmental events. particularsocial situation, one's behavioralgoals are largely That the stimulus environmentcan come to directly and determinedboth by global featuresof the setting (e.g., party, automatically activate an individual's goals and intentions meeting with higher status individual) and by local features within situations, as called for in Lewis's Level II, is a pro- of the interactionpartner's behavior (e.g., reactingto a ma- posal with some precedent (see reviews by Bargh, 1990; nipulation attempt), to subsequently determine behavior Gollwitzer, 1990). The early Germanwill psychology (e.g., within that situation (Bargh, 1990; Langer, 1978). Ach, 1935) endorsedthe principleof the direct activationof motives and goals by those environmentalobjects frequently Intentions as Desires for Goals associated with them in the past (see Gollwitzer, 1990). In a similar fashion, Lewin (1935) in his field theory arguedthat Should we, however, label such behavior "intentional"? behaviorwas "steered"by the objects in the currentenviron- Lewis notes that Piaget (e.g., 1936/1952) believed that an ment, throughtheir activationof the individual'sbehavioral action could be goal directedbut not intentional;the infant's goals associated with them (pp. 49-50). More recent infor- behavior was said to be unintentionalalbeit goal directed COMMENTARIES 249 because the internal goals of the infant could only be acti- No Need to Assume That All Goals vated by the immediate stimulus environment. Only when Are Intentionally Held the child had developed the ability to create goals and plans in the absence of external events relevant to those directly In addition to opening these existential worm-cans, and so that the behaviorwas inter- goals plans, goal guiding Lewis's assumption that all goal-directed behavior is inten- would label the resultant behavior nally activated, Piaget tional is also clearly unnecessaryto achieve his own for "intentional." goals the article, which are "to reduce the mixed model Piaget Lewis, on the other contends because "all hand, that, offers to a single one in which intentions appear from the intentionshave desires" for specific outcomes, any behavior and to address "the of the directed toward beginning" problem development achieving a particulargoal that also evi- of intention." As for the first to that infants dences a desire for that purpose, argue goal thereforemust be intentional.In show from the results in his he intentionality experimental reported experiments demonstratesa covariation between the the article, all that is needed is to assume that intentional infants'emotional of or and theirattain- responses joy anger, behavioris that which is directedtoward achieving a desired or to attainthe of of the ing failing goal presentation smiling goal-state (I = G + D). In fact, the design of the face and Sesame Street theme Because the infants experiment song. seemed to follow directly from this showed emotional evidence of a desire for the novel assumption. event, As for the second of the article, the Lewis that their purpose assuming argued goal-directed arm-pullingbehavior of intentions and is not for was intentional: equivalence goals necessary Lewis's distinctionsbetween the five levels of intentionality. What these levels correspondto are levels of awareness of Theycould stop their arm pulling if theyso desired, one's intentions. That can in how aware are and so we can people vary they arguethat its continuationreflected a of the intentions their behavior is a desire to do so. guiding valuable point, Alternatively,Piaget (1936/1952) and because Lewis assumes that all intentions are wouldargue that neitherdesired to norwere in- (and goals) they desired the individual terestedin engagingin this task. ... It was not the by having them, nothing in his discus- child who desiredbut the outcomethat controlled. sion of