Goals Flashcards
What are goals?
- Internal representations of desired states
How long do goals last?
- from the moment to life long
Can single goals be understood in isolation?
- no
What is goal initiation?
- Express a desired identity
- Instrumental rewards
- Influenced by others (explicitly and implicitly)
How are goals influenced by others?
- Presence or thoughts of significant other automatically activates goals associated with sig other
- goal contagion
- role models
- resist controlling others
What is an impulse?
- specific
- reflexive, quick, automatic
- strong incentive value (hedonic)
- immediate short term gratification
- elicits behavior- sometimes implicitly
When are impulses adaptive?
- live only for today
- live only for oneself
- lack long term goals
- lack interpersonal goals
How do we manage goals?
- self control
- form of self regulation
- willpower
- Manage choice dilemma between small immediate reward and long term goal
What is the delay of gratification paradigm?
- marshmallow experiment
- how long you can resist temptation
What does the marshmallow experiment predict?
- Educational achievement
- Body Mass Index
What does the marshmallow experiment maybe predict?
- social and emotional adjustment in adolescence
- coping with stress
- less substance abuse
- buffer against borderline, teen externalizing and internalizing behavior
How do we delay gratification?
- attentional focus: self distraction (focus on shape more than taste)
- representations of the temptation (think of as cloud or cotton ball - cooler perspective)
What is self control?
- reflective, deliberate, consider
What is desire?
- Affectively charged motivation toward a specific object or person or activity associated with pleasure or relief from displeasure
- wanting
When is a desire a temptation?
- when acting on the desire will conflict with goals
What is the expectancy value theory?
- need
- incentive value
- probability of motive satisfaction (successfully executed and will satisfy need)
Does automatic affect trigger impulsive, behavior?
- yes
When do we go for impulsive behaviour?
- If desired object immediately available and processing resources low
What might lower processing resources?
- Having just engaged in self regulation/control
- Cognitively busy (dealing with a lot or something complex)
- Death thoughts
- Alcohol
- Working memory capacity low
- Self affirmation low
What are interpersonal influences on goal pursuit?
- High maintenance interactions can reduce self control resources
What are high maintenance interactions?
- Inter-racial interactions
- Other person is not mimicking you
- Trying to empathize with someone non responsive to your efforts
What happens when we try to suppress thoughts about the temptation?
- Ruminate about desires
- Generate more thoughts supporting and justifying indulgence
- Suppression rebound effects: pressure builds up and explodes
- suppression does not work
How do we face temptation?
- Need to identify that there is a self control conflict
- Need a successful self control strategy to ward off temptation
What happens if you don’t identify self control conflict?
- indulge
What would encourage you to induge?
- frame temptation as single opportunity
- calendar with grids
What would encourage you to identify a self control conflict?
- frame temptation in relation to future opportunities
- calendar without grids
Which signifies a goal conflict: healthy and unhealthy snacks in one bowl or separate bowls?
- separate bowls
- see as two different things
How do we resolve a goal conflict?
- Distance from temptation (physically fat away)
- Pre commitment
- Devalue temptation
- Temptations abstract and cool (decrease positive emotion) and goal concrete and hot
What are proactive self control strategies?
- select situations less tempting
- modify situations
- appraise the temptation as less tempting
- willful resistance in the moment (harder to do)
What is the illusion of restraint?
- In “cold” states, we underestimate the influence of hot, impulsive states
- Students overestimate their ability to overcome fatigue in studying instead of planning a balanced study schedule
When do we make better decisions about the future?
- when we are in the state already
- when in a state of fatigue (when planning studying)
- when hungry (in deciding if hunger is easy to overcome)
When does crime usually happen?
- Most robberies: short term and limited benefit
- Interpersonal violence typically late at night
- Sleep deprivation
- Hot temperature
What is the experimental test of self control and aggression?
- Resist eating a donut vs a radish
- Receive an insulting evaluation from confederate
- Decide how much hot sauce to give the confederate
- give confederate more hot sauce when resisting donut because using self control a lot to resist, therefore it is low and become more aggressive
What is more common, violent urges or violent acts?
- Violent urges much more common than violent acts
What is the Safe Dates Physical Violence Scale?
- How frequently you initiated 16 violent behaviors during an argument, excluding self defense
Who is more likely to engage in intimate partner violence?
- Low trait self control
- Low relationship commitment
- Responding quickly to a situation
How does ego depletion relate to intimate partner violence?
- when receiving nasty feedback from partner and therefore less money
- male partner hold uncomfortable yoga poses for longer
How do we achieve goals?
- planning
- implementation intentions (thinking ahead: when, where, how)
- practice becomes habits
- interpersonal influences
What happens when an academic goal is primed?
- trigger thoughts of closeness to person who supports our academic goals
- do better on exams weeks later
Why do we engage in self control?
- to override temptations and to achieve long term goals
