Manuscript submitted for publication, Personality and Social Psychology Review
On the Implicit Nature of Control Motivation
John T. Jones
State University of New York at Buffalo
Acknowledgments: I am grateful to Brett Pelham, Sandra Murray, Barbara Bunker, Matt Mirenberg, and Mireille Jones for their inspiration, patience, and insightful comments on a previous draft of this paper.
Requests for reprints should be sent to:
John T. Jones
Department of Psychology, Park Hall
SUNY-Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260
E-mail: jtj3@acsu.buffalo.edu
Abstract
Past theory and research strongly suggest that the need for prediction and control represents a basic motivation in both human beings and animals. Furthermore, recent research suggests that needs are monitored unconsciously and that motivation often guides behavior automatically (i.e. without intention, attention, awareness, or control). The current paper reviews these ideas as they relate to the concept of implicit control motivation. Concerns regarding prediction and control do appear to influence thought, feeling and behavior automatically. Thus the need for prediction and control may be even more influential than previously believed. Theoretical implications of this view for mere exposure, terror management, and self-verification are discussed and hypotheses are proposed to address these issues empirically.
On the Implicit Nature of Control Motivation
Fortune tellers, doctors, meteorologists, therapists, and self-help gurus all have at least one very important thing in common; their vocations are all based upon the ability (real or imagined) to predict and control future events. They are not alone in this pursuit. The motive to render the world predictable and controllable appears to be fundamental, not only to human beings, but to all living organisms. The closely related motives of prediction and control arguably form the bedrock upon which we construct meaning and understanding in an otherwise chaotic environment (Lefcourt, 1973; Popper, 1963). That is, in a world that was either unpredictable or uncontrollable, our ability to take sensible actions would be lost (Lakoff, & Johnson, 1999). Learning itself may be based upon the discovery of predictable regularities in the environment (Skinner, 1953). From an evolutionary perspective, one might argue that prediction and control are essential for solving numerous adaptive problems (Wilson, 1978; Dawkins, 1989).1 It seems unlikely any of us would exist had our distant ancestors been unable to predict the behavioral tendencies of predators and prey alike. In short, being able to predict and control one's world often proves to be the difference between life and death. At first blush this claim may seem somewhat extreme. However, it is an idea grounded in a long tradition of psychological thought and research.
The purpose of this review is to develop and evaluate the hypothesis that prediction and control motives operate implicitly (i.e., unconsciously or automatically, Bargh, 1994), often guiding behavior unconsciously. Furthermore, it is argued that knowledge of the implicit desire for control can help integrate some seemingly divergent literatures in social and personality psychology. This review begins with a presentation of past research highlighting the importance of the need for prediction and control. The potential implicit nature of this motivation is supported by a review of recent research in implicit social cognition. An empirical strategy is then presented, followed by potential implications of the implicit control view.
Although the focus of the current review is on the construct of control, references will often be made to both “prediction and control” or “prediction” alone. This is based on the assumption that where there is prediction, control usually follows. Clearly these constructs are difficult to separate. While several researchers have noted that the benefits of control may result from the enhanced predictability that control provides (Averill, 1973; Schulz, 1976; Seligman, 1975), it is also clear that the ability to control provides benefits above and beyond the ability to predict (e.g., Reim, Glass, & Singer, 1971; Greer & Maisel, 1972). Still others note that increases in predictability do not necessarily lead to increases in control and suggest that predictability should be treated as a separate construct (Skinner, 1996). The precise relationship between prediction and control is ultimately an empirical question that remains to be adequately addressed. What is known for certain is that (1) prediction and control are closely linked, and (2) control is much less likely without some limited measure of predictability.
Control
Psychologists have long recognized the importance of control concerns (Adler, 1930; Bandura, 1977; Burger, 1992; Freud, 1894/1953; Harter, 1978; Heider, 1958; James, 1890/1950; Kelly, 1955; Langer, 1975; Maslow, 1943; Rodin, 1986; Rotter, 1966; Skinner, 1953; Skinner, 1996; Swann, 1983; Taylor, 1983; Thompson, 1981; Weary, Gleicher, and Marsh, 1993; White, 1959). Borrowing from Nietzsche, the psychoanalyst Alfred Adler (1930) proposed that all organisms are predisposed through natural selection to strive to master and assert control over the physical environment. According to Adler, “a feeling of pleasure is founded in a feeling of power, that of displeasure in a feeling of powerlessness” (in Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1956, p.111). Similarly, in response to the proliferation of drive theories offered to explain complex human and animal behavior, the developmental psychologist Robert White (1959) developed a theory of effectance motivation. The desire to exert control over one's environment was also a central component of White's theory. He noted that animals of differing complexity display strong exploratory tendencies, even when their major needs have been met. For example, rats will cross a mildly painful electrified grid exclusively for the “reward” of exploring new surroundings (Nissen, 1930). White suggested that this tendency for exploration, and even “higher order” mental processes such as language and thinking, reflect the basic and innate drive to interact effectively with and control the environment.
Interest in the concept of control has only intensified in recent years. This is reflected in the proliferation of control-related constructs in psychology. In developing an integrative framework of control Ellen Skinner (1996) identified nearly 100 control-related constructs in the psychological literature. This interest in the construct of control is due in no small measure to the well documented importance of control for both physical and psychological functioning.
Consequences of Losing Control
A long line of empirical research supports the importance of control concerns by highlighting the aversive consequences of threats to prediction and control (Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989; Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978; Pavlov; 1928; Seligman, 1975). As one early example, Pavlov (1928) showed that dogs respond negatively when deprived of the ability to predict reward. Pavlov trained dogs to discriminate between two shapes (a square vs. a circle) by conditioning them to expect the onset of meat powder following the presentation of one of the forms but not the other. The dogs did not have to make an operant response; the shape merely predicted the onset of reward. Over a series of stimulus presentations the two shapes became increasingly similar in appearance, to a point where the two forms were indistinguishable. Although the dogs continued to receive food on a consistent basis, their ability to predict reward was lost. The dogs reacted to this loss of predictability with obvious concern and distress.
Seligman (1975) extended these findings to develop a theory of learned helplessness, which suggests that facing repeated uncontrollable events leads people and animals alike to feel helpless, hopeless and depressed. In the first experiment of this type, dogs were subjected to a series of painful, unavoidable shocks. Initially the dogs showed distress and attempted to escape. They soon learned, however, that escape was impossible. Neither barking, tail wagging, nor physical struggles to flee influenced the shock. In other words, the dogs found themselves incapable of exerting control over their predicament. When later placed in a shuttle box, an apparatus that provides the opportunity to avoid or escape shock, the same dogs made no effort to flee. Instead they passively and dejectedly endured their “fate” (Seligman, & Maier, 1967). Some consequences of lack of control for humans were demonstrated by Glass and Singer (1973). Attempting to simulate the stress of urban living, they found that in comparison with participants sitting in a quiet room, participants exposed to aversive uncontrollable loud noise made more proofreading mistakes and gave up sooner on problem solving tasks. Importantly, merely believing that they could turn off the noise, or having access to someone who could, significantly reduced these deficits. Converging evidence supporting the negative consequences of uncontrollability is provided by an influential study by Rodin and Langer (1977) who found that elderly nursing home residents who had very little control over their day-to-day lives deteriorated more quickly, and died sooner, than those who were experimentally given more control (e.g. by being given plants to water, by being allowed to choose which night to watch a movie, by being given the opportunity to determine how complaints were handled).
Focusing on enduring perceptions of personal control, the personality theorist Julian Rotter (1966, See also Lefcourt, 1982; Phares, 1976; Strickland, 1989) drew a distinction between people with an external locus of control - the belief that chance or outside forces control one's fate - and those with an internal locus of control - the belief that one has personal control over most of what happens in life. A wealth of data highlights the benefits of an internal locus of control. Internals tend to be less depressed (Benassi, Sweeney, & Dufour, 1988), to achieve more in school (see Findley & Cooper, 1983, for a review), and to be more capable of coping with marital problems (Miller, Lefcourt, Holmes, Ware, & Saleh, 1986).
At least some of these negative consequences appear to be mediated by the release of stress hormones. People deprived of control experience both heightened cortisol levels (a physiological marker of stress) and decreased immune functioning (Rodin, 1986). Similarly, the crowding that occurs in densely populated cities, prisons, and college dorms is a likely threat to prediction and control and is associated with an increase in both stress hormone and blood pressure levels (Fleming, Baum, & Weiss, 1987; Ostfeld, Kasl, D'Atri, & Fitzgerald, 1987).
These examples, and many others like them (Brown & Siegel, 1988; Donnerstein & Wilson, 1976; Klein, Fencil-Morse, & Seligman, 1976; Lewinsohn, Hoberman, & Rosenbaum, 1988; Lopez & Little, 1996; Overmier, 1968; Pagel, Becker, & Coppel, 1985) strongly support the idea that repeated experience with uncontrollability has aversive consequences for both humans and animals alike.2
Illusion of control
Another source of evidence that organisms have a basic need for prediction and control is based on people's tendency to overestimate their level of personal control. For example, people consistently perceive control over outcomes that are actually determined by chance (Bouts & Van Avermaet, 1992; Fleming, & Darley, 1990; Langer, 1975; Langer, & Roth, 1975). In one study, participants allowed to choose their own lottery numbers were more confident of their chances to win compared with those whose numbers were chosen for them. In a related study, people believed that they had greater control over the outcome of a dice game when they personally rolled the dice rather than having someone else roll on their behalf (Langer, 1975).
It appears that such inflated perceptions of control are not only common but also beneficial. The illusion of control appears to have important consequences for both psychological and physical well-being (Averill, 1973, Taylor, & Brown, 1988, 1994; Thompson, 1981). More specifically, illusions of personal control appear to enhance adjustment to both short term aversive events (For reviews see Averill, 1973, Thompson, 1981) and chronic threats to well-being (Taylor, Lichtman, & Wood, 1984). According to Taylor (1983), one's sense of mastery or personal control is challenged by life-threatening conditions such as cancer. Patients who blame the cause of their disease on factors beyond their control generally have worse outcomes than patients who blame it on causes they can change. To test this hypothesis, Taylor, Lichtman, and Wood (1984) asked breast cancer patients to rate the extent to which their cancer could be controlled (e.g. Do you think the course of your cancer is something you have some control over?). Compared with patients who reported little control over cancer, patients whose perceived more control (often unrealistically) reported less psychological distress (i.e. anxiety, depression), higher levels of general well-being, higher self-rated adjustment and were rated as better adjusted by both physicians and interviewers (for an alternative perspective on findings such as these see Carver, Harris, Lehman, Durel, Antoni, Spencer, & Pozo-Kaderman, 2000).
In contrast, relatively realistic perceptions of control are associated with both negative mood (Alloy, Abramson, & Viscusi, 1981) and mild to severe depression (Alloy & Abramson, 1982; Golin, Terrell, & Johnson, 1977). For example, Golin, Terrell, and Johnson, (1977) had both non-depressed and depressed participants placed bets in a “craps” style dice game. Participants were informed that either they or the experimenter would throw the dice. Subsequently participants rated how confident they were that they would win the next throw. Compared with depressed participants, non-depressed participants were more confident of success when they were allowed to roll the dice themselves. However, the confidence of depressed participants rose when the experimenter rolled on their behalf. In fact, depressed participants were unrealistically confident when they had less control. This finding suggests that depressed people are less likely to over-estimate their degree of personal control compared with the non-depressed.
Theories of cognitive consistency
In addition to research dealing directly with prediction and control concerns, a number of social-psychological theories are indirectly grounded in the belief that a predictable and controllable world is fundamental human concern. This view is reflected primarily in theories of cognitive consistency (e.g. Festinger, 1957; Heider, 1958; Osgood, & Tannenbaum, 1955; Rosenberg, 1956; Swann, 1987). Perhaps the most influential of these is Festinger's (1957) theory of cognitive dissonance. In its original formulation, cognitive dissonance theory posited that simultaneously holding two inconsistent cognitions produces an aversive state of tension that people are motivated to reduce. From a control perspective, holding two dissonant thoughts is threatening because it highlights the possibility that even one's own thoughts may be unstable, unpredictable and ultimately uncontrollable. Festinger suggested that the need to reduce inconsistency may be a “hard-wired” aspect of cognitive systems. If the architecture of cognitive systems is indeed “designed” for consistency, we can infer that the pragmatic result is an overwhelming motivation for and concern with prediction and control (see also, Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1997). It should also be noted that this “hard-wired” view strongly supports the notion that prediction and control concerns often operate outside of conscious awareness (see also Lieberman, Ochsner, Gilbert, & Schacter, 2001).
Some of the strongest support for the aversive nature of inconsistency comes from research on self-verification theory (Swann, 1983, 1987). Self-verification theory states that people strive for feedback that is consistent with their own self-conceptions, even when more flattering but inconsistent information is available. In other words, people want others to see them the way they see themselves, even if they see themselves negatively.
People seek to acquire self-verifying feedback in at least two ways (Swann, 1987; Swann, & Pelham, 2002). First, people create social environments that reinforce their existing self-views. For example, Swann, Stein-Seroussi, and Giesler (1992) found that compared with participants with positive self-concepts, participants with negative self-concepts preferred interaction partners who viewed them negatively (but accurately) rather than positively. A second means by which people acquire self-verifying feedback is through selective information processing. In support of this view, Swann and Read (1981) found that people spend a disproportionate amount of time and effort analyzing feedback (Study 1) and are more likely to recall feedback (Study 3) when this feedback confirms their existing self-views, even when existing self views are negative.
The relation between prediction and control concerns and self-verification strivings has yet to be assessed directly. However, the fundamental premise of self-verification theory is clear: “people strive to confirm their self-conceptions to bolster their perceptions of prediction and control” (Swann, Stein-Seroussi, & Giesler, 1992, p. 392).
Attribution theory
Prediction and control concerns also form the theoretical cornerstone of attribution theory, whose pioneers have long suggested that inferences about the social world are made in the service of rendering the world predictable and controllable (Gilbert & Malone, 1995; Heider, 1958; Jones & Davis, 1965; Kelley, 1967). As Gilbert and Malone (1995) point out “people make attributions because doing so enables them to achieve certain ends, for instance, to predict others and thereby control the extent to which others' behavior can affect them” (p. 34).
Pittman and Pittman (1980) surmised that if attributions are made in the interest of prediction and control concerns, then people should be especially concerned with forming accurate impressions of others after experiencing a threat to control. To this end, Pittman and Pittman first established three levels of control deprivation (baseline, low, and high) by varying the amount of non-contingent feedback participants were given on a concept formation task. Next participants were told of a man who had written an essay opposing nuclear power plants in heavily populated areas. Participants were told either that the man wrote the essay for payment (external cause condition) or for his personal journal (internal cause condition). Finally, participants rated the extent to which they agreed that “Some external influences probably caused him to write the particular essay” (p.383). In the external cause condition participants deprived of control were significantly more likely to endorse this statement compared with baseline participants. Conversely, in the internal cause condition participants deprived of control were significantly less likely to endorse this statement compared to baseline participants. In short, control threat significantly increased the sophistication of attributional analysis. Participants who were deprived of control made strong attributions to the situation when a potent situational constraint was apparent, and they made stronger attributions to the person when cues for internally driven behavior were salient. This supports the hypothesis that attributions are driven by control concerns.
Long before the significance of control had been empirically verified, Adler (1930) suggested that controlling one's personal environment is “an intrinsic necessity of life itself” (p. 398). More recently Lefcourt (1973) advanced a similar conclusion stating, “the sense of control, the illusion that one can exercise personal choice, has a definite and positive role in sustaining life” (p. 424). Given the voluminous literature demonstrating the significance of control concerns, these assertions seem well supported.
Unconscious Processes
The central argument of the present paper is that the motivation for control may have much of its basis in unconscious or implicit processes. Whereas the theory and research reviewed thus far suggests that the desire for prediction and control is a fundamental human motivation, it fails to distinguish between the conscious versus unconscious operation of this motive. One can infer that prediction and control concerns have an unconscious basis for several reasons. First, existing evidence suggests that animals as well as human beings are motivated by a desire for prediction and control. Consciousness, at least human consciousness, does not appear to be a prerequisite for control motivation. This is consistent with the assumption that the desire for prediction and control is the result of “hard-wired” cognitive architecture and has its basis in the unconscious operation of this architecture (Dennett, 1991; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999). However, knowing that the need for prediction and control motivates human as well as animal behavior does not necessarily mean that human consciousness plays no role in prediction and control motivation.
One might also infer that prediction and control concerns operate unconsciously because of the conscious and deliberate operation of this motivation over time. That is, the conscious and deliberate pursuit of prediction and control concerns over time may become habitual. At this point, consciousness is no longer needed to initiate control concerns or guide behavior designed to allay these concerns. The idea that routine psychological processes could recede from awareness and operate outside of consciousness has been around since at least the end to the 19th Century (James, 1890/1950; Jastrow, 1906; Freud, 1933). Although James (1890/1950) avoided references to the unconscious per se, he clearly recognized the automatic nature of everyday life. In fact, he argued that " The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work" (p. 122). The concept of automaticity has become an emerging theme in cognitive and social psychology (for reviews see Bargh, & Ferguson, 2000; Greenwald, & Banaji, 1995; Kihlstrom, 1987; Smith, & DeCoster, 2000). This accumulating evidence shows that our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and motivations are often influenced by powerful and ubiquitous unconscious processes. Thus either because the need for prediction and control is the result of hardwired affective/cognitive architecture, or because it is a function of over-learning and habit, (and most likely an interaction of the two) it seems plausible that this need operates unconsciously.
Implicit social cognition
Initially, research in implicit social cognition focused primarily on the influence of unconscious information processing on attitudes, person perception and stereotyping. For example, regardless of their level of self-reported prejudice, most Whites hold negative implicit (unconscious) beliefs about Blacks (Devine, 1989). These negative implicit beliefs can be subliminally activated and may influence behavior without awareness (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996; Dijksterhuis, & van Knippenberg, 1998). As another example, people also judge others on the basis of physical attractiveness yet are unaware of this bias. In fact, compared with attractive infants, unattractive infants receive less affection from their mothers, apparently as a result of unconscious preferences for beauty (Langlois, Ritter, Casey, & Sawin, 1995). Finally, unconscious negative attitudes toward the color black may lead referees to penalize black uniformed teams more than non-black uniformed teams (Frank & Gilovich, 1989). Diverse findings such as these provide strong support for the argument that many of our preferences, judgments and behaviors are influenced by factors that lie outside of awareness, do not require intention, proceed in the absence of conscious attention, and at times may be beyond our control (Bargh, 1994). The list of additional findings that support this general point is almost as long as the list of contemporary research topics in social cognition (see Greenwald & Banaji, 1995, for a review).
Implicit social motivation
Recently theorists have taken the argument a step further, suggesting that even goals and motivation can be conceptualized as having an unconscious or automatic basis (Aarts & Dijksterhuis, 2000; Bargh, 1990; Bargh, Gollwitzer, Lee-Chai, Barndollar, & Trotschel, 2001; Chartrand & Bargh, 1996; McClelland, 1980; Moskowitz, Gollwitzer, Wasel, & Schaal, 1999; Pelham, Mirenberg, & Jones, 2002; Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1999). This argument trades on the assumption that mental representations of goals are similar to that of other knowledge structures (e.g., stereotypes) and are thus susceptible to automatic activation.
The idea that sources of motivation may be unconscious was popularized by Freud (1933) who argued that basic biological needs exert an influence on behavior independent of conscious awareness. Maslow (1943) also suggested that any definitive theory of human motivation should focus on ultimate or basic goals that “imply a more central place for unconscious rather than conscious motivations” (p. 542). Freud's notions about unconscious motivation have been both controversial and hotly debated. Whereas many of his ideas have proven difficult to test (but c.f. Newman, Duff, & Baumeister, 1997 for some recent support) an abundance of evidence does suggest that people are, at the very least, often unaware of the causes of their own preferences and behaviors (Pelham, Mirenberg, & Jones, 2002; Nisbett & Wilson, 1977; Zajonc, 1980).
Recently, social psychologists have begun to investigate the distinction between implicit and explicit motivation. This research shows that specific motivations can be activated pre-consciously to influence behavior in ways that most people would attribute to the conscious activation of the same specific motivation (Bargh, 1990; Chartrand & Bargh, 1996; Chialdini, 1994; Moskowitz, Gollwitzer, Wasel & Schaal, 1999; Moskowitz, Salomon & Taylor, 2000; Spencer, Fein, Wolfe, Fong, & Dunn, 1998). In short, goals may be activated preconsciously and then operate nonconsciously to influence behavior (Bargh, 1990; Chartrand & Bargh, 1996). According to the auto-motive model (Bargh, 1990) people have specific chronic goals that are triggered automatically by specific environmental stimuli. These auto-motives may include the desire for accuracy, consistency, or achievement. To test the idea that goals may be unconscious, Bargh, Gollwitzer, Lee-Chai, Barndollar, and Trotschel (2001), nonconsciously primed participants with either neutral words (river, shampoo) or achievement related words (achieve, success). They found that compared with participants nonconsciously primed with neutral words, participants primed with achievement related words preformed better (Study 1) and persisted longer (Study 4) on an achievement related task. Importantly, Bargh et al. showed that such priming effects replicate to other specific goals (cooperation - Study 2) and that these effects represent automatic motivation effects and not automatic perceptual effects (Study 3).
In a similar vein Moskowitz, Gollwitzer, Wasel and Schaal (1999) predicted that people who chronically pursue fairness in judging women would have this goal activated automatically in the presence of stereotype relevant primes. To test this prediction, Moskowitz et al. (Study 3) assessed participants' chronic fairness goals toward women. Participants were classified as chronics if they displayed compensatory behavior in response to being forced to make stereotypic judgments of women and as non-chronics if they did not. Next, participants completed a pronunciation task in which male and female photographs were presented as primes. Each prime was followed by either a stereotype-consistent (e.g., irrational, dependent) or stereotype-irrelevant (e.g., colorful, lonely) attribute. Participants were instructed to pronounce each attribute as quickly as possible. Moskowitz et al. predicted that female faces should prime stereotypes of women and facilitate pronunciation for stereotype-consistent traits; but only for non-chronics. Participants with chronic fairness goals should not show this classic priming effect. This prediction was supported. Participants with chronic fairness goals did not show the classic priming effect, even when conscious correction processes were inhibited. This finding supports the idea that chronic goals can be activated automatically to control (or perhaps replace) automatic stereotype activation. Furthermore, it supports the more general conclusion that goals can operate non-consciously.
In addition to this small but growing body of research that directly investigates unconscious motives, there is also a very large body of research that suggests indirectly that motivation has an unconscious component. For instance, there is evidence that the implicit motivation to feel good about the self can influence people's evaluation of nearly anything associated with the self. Research on the mere ownership effect shows that giving people objects, such as pens or mugs, causes people to evaluate these objects more favorably than they would otherwise (Beggan, 1992; Kahneman, Knetsch, & Thaler, 1990; Van Boven, Dunning, & Lowenstein, 2000). Furthermore, research on the name letter effect (Hoorens & Nuttin, 1993; Kitayama & Karasawa, 1997; Nuttin, 1985) shows that people evaluate the letters in their own names more favorably than letters that are not in their own names. These unconscious preferences even appear to influence major life decisions. For instance, Pelham, Mirenberg, & Jones (2002) showed that people are disproportionately likely to live in cities or states and to choose careers whose names share letters with their own first or last names. Thus, people whose first or last name is Louis are disproportionately likely to live in Saint Louis, MO, and people named Denise, Dena, Dennis, or Denny are disproportionately likely to become dentists.
Pelham, et al. (2002) referred to findings such as these as implicit egotism. Implicit egotism refers to the general idea that people's positive associations about themselves spill over into their evaluations of objects associated with the self. Presumably, implicit egotism represents an unconscious manifestation of the self-enhancement motive - an automatic process whereby people maintain their positive thoughts and feelings about the self (Pelham et al., 2002). Consistent with the auto-motive model (Bargh, 1990), it appears that the unconscious self-enhancement motive displays properties consistent with the pursuit of conscious self-enhancement. For example, self-serving tendencies are particularly pronounced among people high in explicit self-esteem (Blaine & Crocker, 1993; Pelham & Swann, 1989; Shrauger & Rosenberg, 1970; Steele, 1988; Swann, 1987) and recent research suggests that these self-serving tendencies are manifest not only on explicit, but implicit measures of self-evaluation (Dodgson & Wood, 1998; Hetts, 1999; Jones, Pelham, Mirenberg, & Hetts, 2002; Sinclair & Kunda, 2000). On the basis of findings such as these, Jones et al. (2002) argued that a great deal of self-regulation occurs unconsciously. Although it would be nice to have more direct evidence that the self-enhancement motive operates unconsciously, there is certainly a large amount of evidence that is consistent with this idea.
Finally, an explicit theoretical distinction between implicit and explicit motivation is offered by McClelland and colleagues (McClelland, 1980; McClelland, Koestner, & Weinberger, 1989). According to McClelland, implicit motives are those that find expression directly in behavior and guide behavior without a person's conscious access. As such, implicit motives are revealed only through indirect measures (e.g., objectively coded themes that emerge in people's free-stories, the style of people's drawings or doodles). In contrast, explicit (or self-attributed) motives are those that are accessible to the person, are often given as post-hoc explanations of behavior, and are revealed through traditional self-report measures of personality and motivation.
The distinction between implicit and explicit motives is important because implicit and explicit motive measures do not correlate with one another (e.g., Child, Frank, & Storm, 1956; Holmes & Tyler, 1968) which suggests these measures tap two different constructs, each with distinct implications for behavior. To this end McClelland (1980) suggested that implicit motives predict long-term behavioral trends better than explicit motives, which better predict immediate choices in controlled settings that prompt conscious questions about self-attributed motives (including many laboratory settings). For example, Heckhausen and Halisch (1986) found the typical lack of correlation between an indirect and direct measure of achievement motivation. Importantly, each measure was significantly correlated with different classes of behaviors. The indirect or implicit measure of achievement was correlated with the number of job related activities in which employees had spontaneously engaged. On the other hand, the explicit measure of achievement was correlated with setting higher levels of aspiration and making higher ratings of self-perceived ability. This result is consistent with the idea the implicit motives guide behavior spontaneously over time while explicit motives reflect the operation of goals that people consciously decide to pursue (McClelland, Koestner, &Weinberger, 1989).
Implicit Control Motivation
As the current review demonstrates, implicit, or unconscious formulations of motivation have a long history in psychology. However, these formulations have only recently been given direct empirical attention. Unfortunately, little of this existing research addresses the extent to which our thoughts feelings and behaviors are motivated by the implicit desire for prediction and control. Given both the well-documented importance of control, and the emerging consensus regarding the implicit nature of social cognition and motivation, such an investigation seems overdue.
The implicit control motivation hypothesis states that people are fundamentally driven to satisfy control needs and that this drive has a large implicit or unconscious component; that is, it motivates behavior independent of conscious awareness and intention. According to this view, people are ever vigilant to assess their state of control in any specific context (Bandura, 1977; 1982) and make these assessments automatically. This automatic assessment can preconsciously activate control concerns which may then influence thought, feeling, and behavior in the current situation. In everyday experience, this process is presumably triggered upon the detection (either consciously or preconsciously) of a discrepancy between one's actual state of control and a standard against which the pursuit of control is evaluated (see Carver & Scheier, 1981; 1999). Such discrepancies can potentially arise in any situation in which control is threatened or the pursuit of control is blocked (see Moskowitz, 2002 for some preliminary support for this type of process). This suggests that people are often influenced by the need for prediction and control even though they (1) may fail to realize that this is a concern, (2) may fail to realize that this concern is being monitored, and (3) may fail to realize that their current behavior is influenced by this concern. It follows that self-reported or conscious explanations for a person's responses will not always reflect the a priori motives guiding those responses. As Jacoby, Lindsay, and Toth (1992, p.802) put it, “people sometimes consciously plan and then act, but more often behavior is influenced by unconscious processes; that is, people act and then, if called upon, make their excuses.” Thus, upon conscious reflection people may explain their responses without refering to concerns about prediction and control, even when these concerns have played a fundamental role in guiding their responses (McClelland, 1980; Nisbett, & Wilson, 1977). This raises several testable questions: Can concerns for prediction and control be activated outside of awareness? Can people be influenced by these concerns without realizing it? To what extent do these concerns automatically influence people's preferences, decisions, and behaviors?
Empirical Implications
It is conceivable that implicit control motivation plays a role in several existing social-psychological phenomena, including the mere exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968), terror management processes (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986), and self-verification processes (Swann, 1983; 1987), among others. Prominent theories regarding all three of these phenomena can be viewed through the common perspective of unconscious concerns with prediction and control. Moreover, seen through the common vantage point of implicit control motivation, our understanding of each theory could be greatly expanded and enriched. The next section of this review addresses whether implicit control concerns may turn out to be the hidden hand guiding each of these phenomena.3
Mere exposure
Research on the mere exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968; see Bornstein, 1989; Harrison, 1977 for reviews) has shown that liking for novel stimuli increases as exposure to these stimuli increases. In short, familiarity leads to liking. The typical mere-exposure experiment involves presenting novel stimuli (i.e. line drawings, irregularly shaped polygons) a varying number of times followed by some dependent measure of liking for each stimulus. For example, in Zajonc's first study, participants viewed a series of nonsense words. The exposure frequencies for these nonsense words varied from 0 to 25. Subsequently, participants were asked to rate the extent to which each word represented “goodness of meaning”. Zajonc found that the more often participants were exposed to a word, the more favorably they rated its meaning. This finding was extended to preferences for socially relevant stimuli in Study 3. In this experiment, participants were shown a series of faces (college yearbook photographs) from 0 to 25 times. Participants were then asked to make liking ratings of each stimulus person. Zajonc found that the more frequently a particular stimulus face was presented, the more it was liked.
Initially, mere exposure effects were regarded as the product of exposure to stimuli presented supraliminally (above the threshold for conscious awareness). It soon became clear, however, that stimulus recognition is not a pre-requisite for the production of mere-exposure effects. In fact, even when stimuli are presented subliminally (below the threshold for conscious awareness), participants still prefer frequently presented stimuli (Bornstein & D'Agostino, 1992; Kunst-Wilson & Zajonc, 1980; Monahan, Murphy, & Zajonc, 2000; Murphy, Monahan, & Zajonc, 1995; Wilson, 1979). In perhaps the most influential study to investigate this issue, Kunst-Wilson and Zajonc (1980) exposed participants to a series of irregular polygons five times each at exposure durations of only 1 ms. Participants were then asked to select which polygon they preferred, and which they recognized, from pairs of previously exposed versus novel polygons. Kunst-Wilson and Zajonc found that participants preferred subliminally exposed polygons over novel ones 60% of the time. In support of the hypothesis that this enhanced liking was not a function of stimulus recognition, recognition accuracy was only 48%, or about what would be expected by chance alone.
Not only is stimulus recognition unnecessary to produce mere exposure effects, it may actually inhibit them (Bornstein, 1989; Bornstein & D'Agostino, 1992). In support of this view, Bornstein (1989) reported the results of an informative meta-analysis. Across the studies Bornstein reviewed, the average mere exposure effect size for subliminally presented stimuli corresponded to an r of .528, compared with an r of .140 for studies with supraliminally presented stimuli (results reported in Bornstein & D'Agostino, 1992). Further, as a direct test of the hypothesis that stimulus recognition inhibits mere exposure effects, Bornstein and D'Agostino (1992) assigned participants to either a 5ms (subliminal) condition or a 500ms (supraliminal) condition. Participants exposed to stimuli for 5ms showed significantly stronger mere exposure effects than those exposed to the same stimuli for 500ms. This finding provides strong support for the notion that conscious recognition of stimuli actually undermines the mere exposure effect. The idea that conscious recognition of stimuli inhibits implicit phenomena is a hallmark of research in implicit social cognition as well (e.g., Greenwald & Banaji, 1995; Koole, Dijksterhuis, & van Knippenberg, 2001; Newman, Duff, & Baumeister, 1997; Schwarz & Clore, 1983).
Until very recently (Zajonc, 2001) fans of mere exposure noted that what makes the mere exposure effect particularly intriguing is that enhanced liking for frequently exposed stimuli occurs in the complete absence of reinforcement. Or does it?
According to Skinner (1953), even generalized, nonspecific feedback from the environment may be reinforcing to the extent it allows the organism to successfully manipulate (or control) its environment. While Skinner was arguing about the ubiquitous role of reinforcement in daily life, a minor twist on this notion is the idea that organisms are constantly assessing the status of their control over the environment. Consistent with this idea, Skinner suggested that “we are automatically reinforced, apart from any particular deprivation, when we successfully control the physical world” (p.77). This raises the question of whether increased liking of repeatedly exposed novel stimuli is due to reinforcement after all. That is, familiarization through mere exposure might be reinforcing because familiar stimuli are more predictable (almost by definition) and controllable than are unfamiliar stimuli. This forms the basis for the hypothesis that we may prefer what is familiar precisely because familiar stimuli are predictable and controllable. As an organism continually confronts a stimulus that does not result in a negative outcome it comes to prefer that stimulus: the stimulus is tagged as safe and its consequences predictable (Zajonc, 2001). Taste aversion conditioning is a potential example of this type of process (Garcia, & Koelling, 1966). One way animals learn what is safe to eat is by sampling small amounts of novel foods. If an animal gets sick after tasting a novel food, it will avoid recently ingested novel foods. Conversely, if an animal does not get sick after ingesting a novel food, it will eat that food again in the future, in larger quantities. This process ostensibly occurs automatically.
If mere exposure really is a result of the need to predict and control the environment, participants deprived of control should be motivated to re-establish controllability, which should lead to heightened preferences for familiar, compared to less familiar stimuli. This relation could be tested directly by experimentally manipulating participants' levels of control and assessing the effect on either experimentally or naturally existing created mere exposure preferences.
More specifically, control could be experimentally undermined in an initial control deprivation task. This deprivation should activate an implicit goal to compensate for this loss of control. If familiar stimuli generally enhance prediction and control, then familiar stimuli should be especially attractive to those recently deprived of control. This would suggest that participants are motivated by control concerns even though they have no conscious intent to re-establish control. This would also provide support for the motivational nature of the mere exposure phenomenon. Most importantly, this result would provide an important and powerful demonstration of the implicit operation of control motivation.
Terror Management Theory
Implicit control concerns may also be relevant to terror management theory, or TMT (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986; Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991). TMT posits that a great deal of human behavior is the result of the uniquely human awareness of one's own mortality. TMT suggests that people adopt and defend cultural world views (“Don't speed, Drug use is immoral, Communism is superior to Democracy”) and self-esteem (“I am a worthwhile person.”) as buffering mechanisms against the potential anxiety that death awareness arouses. More recently TMT has been offered as an all-encompassing theory of human social motivation. As such, TMT claims that most social psychological motives are rooted in the existential crisis instigated by death awareness (for a review see Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1997). More specifically, TMT argues that “a wide variety of social motives can be viewed as serving a terror management function” (p.7).
One primary source of support for TMT comes from studies investigating the role of mortality salience in the defense of cultural world-views and self-esteem. The mortality salience hypothesis states that if cultural world views and self-esteem provide protection from the anxiety of death, then reminders of death should increase the need for the cultural world view and self-esteem. In support of this hypothesis, studies have shown that mortality salience makes people more likely to punish those who violate moral standards (Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Lyon, 1989), more likely to overestimate social consensus for one's attitudes (Pyszczynski, Wicklund, Floresku, Koch, Gauch, Solomon, & Greenberg, 1996), and more likely to aggress against those who challenge one's beliefs (McGregor, Lieberman, Solomon, Greenberg, Arndt, Simon, & Pyszczynski, 1998).
Although an abundance of empirical evidence supports the terror management perspective, there may be an alternative view that can account for these findings. From an implicit control perspective, death awareness is but one of many threats to control (See also Snyder, 1997). Death is ultimately unavoidable, and thus ultimately uncontrollable. In many instances, of course, death is also unpredictable, taking innocents and loved ones without warning. From the perspective of TMT, this awareness lies at the foundation of nearly all other social motivations. From an implicit control perspective, this awareness is not the foundation but a cornerstone, beneath which lies a more primitive and fundamental motivation for prediction and control. This should not undermine the importance of death awareness. In fact, from the perspective offered here death awareness is likely the major threat to prediction and control that humans face. To more clearly understand the role of control motivation in TMT, it is important to elaborate the TMT perspective.
According to TMT (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1997) all human behavior is oriented toward the superordinate goal of staying alive. To meet this ultimate goal, humans are motivated by three main motivational systems; direct, defensive, and self-expansive. Direct motives include biological processes and innate behaviors like the regulation of blood sugar levels and the innate fear of snakes. Defensive motives are composed primarily of symbolic means of self-preservation. More specifically, “the pursuit of meaning and value, or faith in the cultural world view and self-esteem, is the primary means of coping with the potential for terror that results when an animal instinctively programed for self-preservation becomes aware that inevitably it will die” (p.5). According to TMT, most motives studied by social psychologists, including the motivation to seek cognitive consistency (e.g., Festinger, 1957; Heider, 1944; Swann, 1983), the motive for justice or fairness (e.g., Lerner, 1980), and the need to belong (e.g., Leary & Downs, 1995) represent symbolic means of defending against the anxiety caused by death awareness. Finally, self-expansive motives include the desire to explore the environment and develop a more adequate understanding of that environment, something roughly analogous to the desire for autonomy or prediction and control (e.g., Deci & Ryan, 1991, White, 1959). Self-expansive motives are posited to be the least urgent of the three types and “do not stem from a sense of discomfort, distress, or deficit that the individual desires to minimize” (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1997, p.6). Thus, TMT mainly explores the implications of the defensive motive system and suggests that nearly all psychological motives have their roots in this system.
In contrast to this view, the view suggested here is that implicit control motives operate at all three levels of the TMT system. That is, the need for prediction and control may not simply be a product of the self-expansive motive system, and as such may not be so independent of the defensive and direct motive systems. As previously noted, the motivation for prediction and control is posited to be a “hard-wired” aspect of cognitive systems. As such, prediction and control may be a fundamental drive that enhances the likelihood of both survival and reproduction. From this perspective prediction and control are adaptive in that they enhance an organism's ability to identify and avoid sources of danger and to identify and obtain sources of pleasure. In this way prediction and control motives may influence both defensive and expansive modes of behavior. In this light, the threat instigated by death awareness stems from a more fundamental and primitive threat to prediction and control. Not surprisingly, this threat triggers defensive responses designed to ameliorate this anxiety.
Some evidence suggests, albeit indirectly, that the need the need to manage existential terror is derivative or subservient to the need for prediction and control. For example, there is abundant evidence that preferences for consistency or control are present in both animals (Seligman, 1975) and human infants (Papousek & Papousek, 1979), neither of whom have a need to manage existential terror. This suggests that compared with terror management concerns, concerns for prediction and control represent more primitive concerns. This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. It is safe to assume that in the evolutionary history of our species, self-awareness and death awareness are relatively recent players on the evolutionary stage (Pelham, 1997).
Some evidence also suggests that death awareness is troubling because it is a major threat to control. Assessing the relation between self-esteem and death related anxiety, Leary, Bednarski, and Saltzman (1995) found that self-esteem was more strongly correlated with fears about dealing with pain and uncertainty than with the fear of non-existence per se. To the extent that uncertainty is related to control, self-esteem may just as likely be a control-anxiety buffer as a death-anxiety buffer. Quite clearly, this argument remains theoretical and will require extensive empirical investigation.
The implicit control perspective on terror management effects raises some testable hypotheses. For example, if thoughts of death motivate social behavior because they pose a threat to prediction and control, then death scenarios that differ in their implications for predictability and controllability should have differential effects on death awareness outcomes. More specifically, a predictable death should be less threatening than an unpredictable death. Consistent with this idea, people who are asked to imagine dying in their old age after a predictable bout with a chronic disease should show weaker TMT effects than people asked to imagine dying as a young person who suddenly learns that he or she has a deadly and inoperable brain tumor.
Another possible empirical direction is grounded in the TMT finding that temporary reminders of ones' mortality lead to enhanced self-esteem and cultural world view defense. It can be hypothesized that if the threat of mortality represents a more basic threat to control, repeated and unavoidable references to one's own death should actually diminish self-esteem and world view defense in a manner consistent with learned helplessness (Seligman, 1975). Bettleheim's (1943) case studies of prisoners in Nazi concentration camps are highly consistent with this line of reasoning. He reported that over time, prisoners largely abandoned their existing world views and adopted world views similar to those of camp guards.
TMT, Implicit Control, and Theories of Cognitive Consistency
As previously noted, psychologists have recognized the importance of consistency as a basic psychological motive. Moreover, most major consistency theorists presume that the need for consistency is grounded in basic perceptual and motivational systems (Festinger, 1957; Heider, 1944; Newcomb, 1953). Terror management theorists provide an alternative view by suggesting that a desire for consistency reflects efforts to manage existential terror rather than concerns with consistency per se (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1997). From this perspective consistency serves a more profound psychological function; it is a prerequisite for an orderly and stable conception of reality that imbues life with meaning. In other words, without consistency a meaningful world view is unattainable, and without a meaningful world view, people are incapable of controlling the terror of death. This seems to imply that consistency serves a function, and without that function, terror management would falter. This begs the question of whether the need for consistency or the need to manage existential terror is more basic (Pelham, 1997). Put another way; if terror management depends upon consistency, then how can the need to manage terror supersede the need for consistency in any hierarchy of motives? This is an empirical question that remains to be addressed.
One intriguing direction for future research on this question would be to investigate the role that terror management and implicit control processes play in self-verification. Self-verification theory (Swann, 1987) challenges the notion that people have a fundamental need for positive self-esteem by demonstrating that people low in self-esteem typically prefer negative but consistent self-relevant feedback over feedback that is positive but inaccurate. But why do people prefer consistent self-relevant feedback in the first place?
In addressing this question, TMT theorists argue that “it is not consistency per se that is the superordinate goal that they are pursuing but, rather, the protection from anxiety that is provided by whatever conception of themselves they have become invested in” (p. 14). Thus ultimately, terror management theory suggests that self-verification is driven by the need to manage existential terror. Self-verification theorists themselves also seem to agree that consistency is not necessarily important in its own right (e.g., see Swann, Stein-Seroussi, & Giesler, 1992). Instead they argue that self-verification stems from an underlying need to maintain one's feelings of prediction and control. To test this hypothesis, Swann et al. gave high and low self esteem participants the opportunity to choose between two potential interaction partners. One of these partners verified participants' self-view while the other did not. Participants were asked to think aloud into a tape recorder as they made their decisions. Consistent with self-verification theory, participants were significantly more likely to choose interaction partners who verified their self-views. The most prominent reasons cited for this preference reflected both epistemic (a need for accurate self-knowledge) and pragmatic (a desire for smooth social interaction) concerns - both of which were interpreted as concerns with prediction and control.
While these findings are consistent with the implicit control view, this research is limited in at least two ways. First, the control interpretation of self-verification would be strengthened by the demonstration that experimentally manipulated perceptions of prediction and control have theoretically predictable consequences for self-verifying preferences. Specifically, it seems reasonable to expect that experimentally manipulated threats to prediction and control would enhance peoples' preferences for self-verifying feedback (see Swann & Reed, 1981, Study 2 for evidence that indirect threats to control enhance self-verification). It also seems important to address the terror management alternative - that self-verification is ultimately a product of attempts to deal with the anxiety of death awareness. As one example, participants experimentally primed to think about their own mortality may show enhanced preferences for self-verifying feedback. However, from the implicit control perspective, this effect should be attenuated by subsequent control affirmation. Needless to say, unraveling this tricky question would be a difficult but worthwhile endeavor.
Summary and Discussion
A large body of theory and research supports the idea that control is a fundamental human need. The current analysis suggests that we may nevertheless underestimate just how fundamental this need is. This may be due in part to the fact that control has traditionally been conceptualized at the explicit or conscious level. In light of the overwhelming importance and influence of control, and given the accumulating evidence that motivation has an implicit or unconscious component, an implicit control motivation perspective is proposed.
The implicit control motivation perspective suggests that people are fundamentally driven to satisfy control needs and that this drive has a large implicit or unconscious component. The implicit nature of control motivation is posited to be a function of both “hard-wired” aspects of cognitive/affective systems and automatization resulting from the deliberate and conscious pursuit of prediction and control over time. This unconscious motive is posited to reflect a primitive, evolutionarily adaptive mechanism that allows organisms to meet the challenges of a complex environment. As such it is proposed that people are often influenced by the need for prediction and control even though they (1) may fail to realize that this is a concern, (2) may fail to realize that this concern is being monitored, and (3) may fail to realize that their current behavior is meaningfully influenced by this concern. This perspective raises several empirical questions: Can prediction and control concerns be activated outside of awareness? Can people be influenced by prediction and control concerns without realizing it? To what extent do these concerns automatically influence people's preferences, decisions, and behaviors? Several strategies are presented to test these questions empirically, including strategies for manipulating people's feelings of predictability and control and assessing the consequences of such motives for preferences such as those grounded in mere exposure.
The implicit control motivation perspective is consistent with the conclusions of Wegner and Wheatley (1999) who suggested that “the real causal mechanisms underlying behavior are never present in consciousness. Rather, the engines of causation are unconscious mechanisms of the mind” (p. 490). According to the current analysis, these unconscious mechanisms are ultimately control mechanisms. From this perspective, conscious perceptions of control (i.e., the illusion of control), and even the experience of free will, may result from the shadow cast by these unconscious control mechanisms. Of course, this is highly speculative and there is much to be done to validate this line of theorizing. At the very least it seems possible that prediction and control concerns operate implicitly to influence a very diverse and seemingly unrelated set of psychological phenomenon. An empirical investigation of these issues is needed to more fully understand and appreciate the roots of human social motivation.
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Footnotes
The ideas presented in this passage are taken from Pittman (1998). This perspective is also
presented by Weary, Gleicher, and Marsh, (1993).
It should be noted that enhanced perceptions of personal control are not universally beneficial
(e.g., Burish, Carey, Wallston, Stein, Jamison, & Lyles, 1984) and in some circumstances may even be maladaptive (e.g., Burger, 1989; Halliday & Graham, 2002).
The highly descriptive term “hidden hand” is taken from Lakoff and Johnson (1999).
Implicit control motivation 2
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