Auto-Motive Model

Definition

The auto-motive model as proposed by John Bargh in 1990 describes the complete sequence of goal pursuit—that is, reaching a goal—as a process taking place outside of conscious awareness and control. The term motive is chosen to encompass goals, motives, and values, yet in most cases, research has focused on goals used in a broad sense. The auto-motive model complements self-regulatory models that focus more on the role of conscious goal choice. According to the automotive model, a strong mental link is supposed to develop between goals that individuals chronically pursue and cognitive representations of situations. Thus, due to consistent and repeated pairing, goals are automatically activated given a goal-relevant, so-called critical situation. As a consequence, these automatically activated goals direct behavior without intentional or deliberate involvement of the individual. In turn, reflective choice and other controlled influences on behavior can be bypassed. In other words, goals are supposed to be represented in the mind in the same way as stereotypes, schemata, and other social constructs and their activation potential are understood to function in a similar manner. Therefore, they can also be automatically activated by situational features. Procedures and plans to attain the respective goal thus influence subsequent behavior, judgments, and decisions outside of the conscious control of the individual. As an example, a student holding an academic achievement goal returns to campus after a break. Being on campus activates the goal, and the student's behavior now turns more toward studying than parties.

History and Background

Research on perception up to the 1940s considered perception mainly to be a transformation process. Since the “new look” approach after World War II—numerous studies have shown that consciously and unconsciously activated goals of an individual shape the way this person perceives the environment and how this information is interpreted and remembered. The auto-motive model draws on this motivational principle of perceptual readiness (i.e., more attentional resources are given to context information in line with a current activated goal), yet takes the development of the “new look” research toward cognitive approaches into account. Under this later “new look” perspective, schemata, or stereotypes, were understood to function in a way similar to goals and values in the early days of the “new look.” The model introduced by Bargh bridges the two, motivational and cognitive, perspectives by proposing that much human behavior is guided by goals automatically activated through situational features, similar to cognitive activation effects (e.g., stereotypes). Central to the auto-motive model is the assumption that the situational cues for these motives rest in the unconscious as well.

Automatic Response Activation According to the Auto-Motive Model

The actual auto-motive model is quite complex and describes several paths for automatic responses to environmental features to occur. In general, automatic goal activation can happen by means of three different routes. First, situational features can activate goals and motives if a consistent pairing preexists between the situational cues and the goal. The activated goals and motives are idiosyncratic in their character, that is, specific to the individual in his or her chronic attainment. Second, situational features can directly activate socially shared norms beyond an idiosyncratic level. In other words, strong normative goals are being activated, too. The third route includes other individuals one is interacting with in the given situation. Thus, the activation does not depend on the situational setting alone, but on the goals and intentions of the interaction partners as well. In this case, perceived goal representations of the interaction partner are being activated. Given these three pathways, the subsequent steps toward behavior are quite different. Within the first route, situational cues lead to an activation of an individual goal: Either goal-relevant procedures or plans are activated. Plans lead to automatic response behavior, whereas procedures influence judgments and decisions. Within the second route, a more global normative activation results in plans that again activate response behavior. For the third path, the route to response behavior is a little more complex because it includes cognition about a third person. The activation of the goal representation of an interaction partner leads to an activation of personal, rather individual reactive goals. It is these goals that activate goal-related plans, which in turn activate corresponding behavior. The reason why the third path is comparatively more complex than the first two is due to the fact that while one can assume an automatic link between environmental features and situational representation, behavioral information of others is much more ambiguous relative to the perceived goal of the interaction partner. Put differently, the individual goal activation depends on the accessibility and applicability of the different possible goals of the interaction partner. Once this perceived goal has been defined, one's own response goal is assumed to be activated immediately. This response goal activation is flexible and is dependent on the most accessible and best applicable perceived goal representation.

...