Toward a formal theory of proactivity

Abstract

Beyond merely reacting to their environment and impulses, people have the remarkable capacity to proactively set and pursue their own goals. The extent to which they leverage this capacity varies widely across people and situations. The goal of this article is to propose and evaluate a model of proactivity and reactivity. We proceed in three steps. First, we model proactivity in a widely used cognitive control task known as the AX Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT). Our theory formalizes an important aspect of proactivity as meta-control over proactive and reactive control. Second, we perform a quantitative model comparison to identify the number and nature of meta-control decisions that are involved in the regulation of proactive behavior. Our findings suggest that individual differences in proactivity are governed by two independent meta-control decisions, namely deciding whether to set an intention for what to do in a future situation and deciding whether to recall one’s intentions when the situation occurs. Third, we test the assumptions and qualitative predictions of the winning model against data from numerous experiments varying the incentives, cognitive load, and statistical structure of the task. Our results suggest that proactivity can be understood in terms of computational models of meta-control. Future work will extend our models from proactive control in the AX-CPT to proactive goal creation and goal pursuit in the real world.

Meta-control: From psychology to computational neuroscience

“…Each meta-control state determines the control policy for a given context, e.g., whether to seek exploitation or exploration. The use of contextual information can also inform the engagement in proactive versus reactive control, as suggested by Lieder and Iwama (2021). They introduce a meta-control mechanism that engages in a cost-benefit computation to decide (a) whether to set a goal, (b) whether to boost or inhibit an existing goal, or (c) whether to engage in reactive control when no task goal is present.…”

“…Their Learned Value of Control (LEVC) model learns to predict the optimal amount of control allocated in a Stroop task based on monetary feedback. Similar to Lieder and Iwama (2021), the objective function of meta-control is to maximize the expected value of allocating control while minimizing the cost associated with exerting control. Finally, Nassar and Troiani (2021) show that when applied to predictive inference, the concept of meta-control becomes closely related to the concept of meta-learning.…”

“…The target of regulation corresponds to the subject of meta-control, i.e., the set of control processes being monitored and regulated. For instance, in the Stroop task, participants may invoke meta-control to regulate the amount of proactive engagement in a control-dependent behavior (Bustamante et al, 2021;Dey & Bugg, 2021;Lieder & Iwama, 2021), whereas in a prospective memory task, meta-control is needed to regulate the trade-off between the requirement to shield a current task-goal from interfering stimuli and the requirement to monitor the environment for cues signaling that one should switch to a different task (Goschke & Dreisbach, 2008;Möschl et al, 2020). However, meta-control also may regulate more complex control policies that determine exploratory versus exploitative behavior (Marković et al, 2021).…”

An interdisciplinary synthesis of research on understanding and promoting well‐doing

“…Therefore, proactive well‐doing can be understood as self‐initiated goal‐setting and goal‐pursuit in the service of the greater good. Research on proactive well‐doing can therefore draw on theories, models, and methods for studying goal‐directed behavior that have been developed in other areas of psychology (Carver & Scheier, 2001; Gagné, 2003; Lieder & Iwama, 2021; McGregor & Little, 1998; Milyavskaya & Werner, 2018, 2021; Peetz & Milyavskaya, 2021; Prystawski et al., 2021; Weinstein & Ryan, 2010). In particular, we already know that people's goals are often organized hierarchically (Carver & Scheier, 2001).…”

Can do and reason to: when are proactive employees willing to share negative information?

“…While their work highlights how proactivity might attenuate external discouragement, little is known regarding its potential to mitigate the internal forces behind the reluctance to share bad news, such as one’s personal belief that sharing will evoke self-detrimental reactions (Dibble and Sharkey, 2017). Proactivity theory highlights the mechanisms through which employees develop and pursue future-oriented goals that are not initiated by the immediate environment (Lieder and Iwama, 2021). Proactivity is defined as “self-initiated and future-focused action to change oneself or the situation” (Parker et al , 2019, p. 221).…”