Uncovering the subterranean
roots of elation and despair:

The role of implicit motives in commitment to,
pursuit of, and disengagement from explicit goals.

 

 

Oliver C. Schultheiss, Ph.D.

 

Assistant Professor of Psychology

The University of Michigan

 

Tuesday, November 27

 4:00 P.M.  

Coffee and tea at 3:30

4448 East Hall

 

Précis

Implicit motives are nonconscious motivational dispositions that determine how much pleasure an individual can derive from the consummation of a motive-specific incentive and how easily he or she can become motivated by cues predicting the incentive. Recent evidence suggests that implicit motives, and not the explicit goals individuals set for themselves, are the actual sources of affect during goal pursuit, with feelings of happiness resulting from the achievement of motive-congruent (but not motive-incongruent) goals and feelings of frustration resulting from the failure to achieve motive-congruent (but not motive-incongruent) goals. At the same time, there is growing evidence that individuals' goal choices cannot be predicted from their implicit motive dispositions, suggesting that implicit motives and explicit goals represent two independent motivational systems. In this talk, I will argue that the existence of, and independence between, these two motivational systems is based on two modes of information coding and processing -- one verbal-symbolic, the other experiential -- which operate in parallel, and explore some of the challenges this dualism poses for the self-regulation of mood, motivation, and behavior.                                                             

 

Next Week, December 4

Christopher Peterson: Character Strengths and Moral Virtues: Why is Goodness Good?

 

The Evolution and Human Adaptation Program Lectures are sponsored by the LS&A Dean's Office,

the Research Center for Group Dynamics at ISR, and the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry

To add your name to the mailing list of events sponsored by EHAP, send a note to ehap@umich.edu