A Theory of Goal Systems

1 The theory outlined in the present chapter adopts a cognitive approach to motivation. In the pages that follow we describe a research program premised on the notion that the cognitive treatment affords conceptual and methodological advantages enabling new insights into problems of motivated action, self-regulation and self-control. We begin by placing our work in the broader historical context of social psychological theorizing about motivation and cognition. We then present our theoretical notions and trace their implications for a variety of psychological issues including activity-experience, goal-commitment, choice, and substitution. The gist of the chapter that follows describes our empirical research concerning a broad range of phenomena informed by the goal-systemic analysis. Motivation versus cognition: the " separatist program. " Social psychological theories have often treated motivation as separate from cognition, and have often approached it in a somewhat static manner. The separatism of the " motivation versus cognition " approach was manifest in several major formulations and debates. Thus, for example, the dissonance versus self-perception debate (Bem, 1972) pitted against each other motivational (i.e., dissonance) versus cognitive (i.e., self-perception) explanations of attitude change phenomena. A similar subsequent controversy pertained to the question of whether a motivational explanation of biased causal attributions in terms of ego-defensive tendencies (cf. Kelley, 1972) is valid, given the alternative possibility of a purely cognitive explanation (Miller & Ross, 1975). The separatism of the " motivation versus cognition " approach assigned distinct functions to motivational and cognitive variables. This is apparent in major social psychological notions of persuasion, judgment or impression formation. For instance, in the popular dual-mode theories of persuasion (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Chaiken & Chen, 1999) the degree of processing 2 motivation acts as an important selector of persuasive mode: High processing motivation (operationalized, e.g., via high personal involvement in an issue) is associated with extensive processing of message arguments, whereas low processing motivation is associated with brief processing of " peripheral " or heuristic cues. In the alternative " unimodel " of persuasion too Spiegel, & Pierro, 2001) motivation determines the extent of processing any kind of information (i.e., one associated with message-arguments or with peripheral/heuristic cues). The " static " approach. Beyond its separation from cognition, motivation has been often treated statically in social psychological research. Social psychologists typically assumed that due to chronic or momentary causes individuals have either high or low degree of some motivation (such as the need …