This study tested the idea of habits as a form of goal-directed automatic behavior. Expanding on the idea that habits are mentally represented as associations between goals and actions, it was proposed that goals are capable of activating the habitual action. More specific, when habits are established (e.g., frequent cycling to the university), the very activation of the goal to act (e.g., having to attend lectures at the university) automatically evokes the habitual response (e.g., bicycle). Indeed, it was tested and confirmed that, when behavior is habitual, behavioral responses are activated automatically. In addition, the results of 3 experiments indicated that (a) the automaticity in habits is conditional on the presence of an active goal (cf. goal-dependent automaticity; J. A. Bargh, 1989), supporting the idea that habits are mentally represented as goal-action links, and (b) the formation of implementation intentions (i.e., the creation of a strong mental link between a goal and action) may simulate goal-directed automaticity in habits.

Six studies examined the goal contagion hypothesis, which claims that individuals may automatically adopt and pursue a goal that is implied by another person's behavior. Participants were briefly exposed to behavioral information implying a specific goal and were then given the opportunity to act on the goal in a different way and context. Studies 1-3 established the goal contagion phenomenon by showing that the behavioral consequences of goal contagion possess features of goal directedness: (a) They are affected by goal strength, (b) they have the quality of goal appropriateness, and (c) they are characterized by persistence. Studies 4 -6 show that people do not automatically adopt goals when the observed goal pursuit is conducted in an unacceptable manner, because the goal will then be perceived as unattractive. The results are discussed in the context of recent research on automatic goal pursuits.

Recent research has revealed that nonconscious activation of desired behavioral states-or behavioral goals-promotes motivational activity to accomplish these states. Six studies demonstrate that this nonconscious operation of behavioral goals emerges if mental representations of specific behavioral states are associated with positive affect. In an evaluative-conditioning paradigm, unobtrusive linking of behavioral states to positive, as compared with neutral or negative, affect increased participants' wanting to accomplish these states. Furthermore, participants worked harder on tasks that were instrumental in attaining behavioral states when these states were implicitly linked to positive affect, thereby mimicking the effects on motivational behavior of preexisting individual wanting and explicit goal instructions to attain the states. Together, these results suggest that positive affect plays a key role in nonconscious goal pursuit. Implications for behavior-priming research are discussed.

People often act in order to realize desired outcomes, or goals. Although behavioral science recognizes that people can skillfully pursue goals without consciously attending to their behavior once these goals are set, conscious will is considered to be the starting point of goal pursuit. Indeed, when we decide to work hard on a task, it feels as if that conscious decision is the first and foremost cause of our behavior. That is, we are likely to say, if asked, that the decision to act produced the actions themselves. Recent discoveries, however, challenge this causal status of conscious will. They demonstrate that under some conditions, actions are initiated even though we are unconscious of the goals to be attained or their motivating effect on our behavior. Here we analyze how goal pursuit can possibly operate unconsciously.

On the basis of the idea that situational norms are mentally represented as associations between environments and normative behavior, it was proposed that an environment can automatically direct normative behavior. More specifically, when situational norms are well-established (e.g., when entering the library, one should be silent), an environment is capable of automatically activating mental representations of normative behavior and the behavior itself. In these experiments, participants were exposed to pictures of environments, and effects on accessibility of representations of normative behavior and on actual behavior were assessed. Results indicated that representations of behavior and actual behavior itself are activated automatically when (a) goals to visit the environment are active and (b) strong associations between environment and normative behavior are established.