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The Pursuit of Self-Defining Goals

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Action Control

Part of the book series: SSSP Springer Series in Social Psychology ((SSSOC))

Abstract

The cognition-behavior relation central here is the human pursuit of self-definitions. The striving after such self-definitions as child-rearer, parent, musician, or humanitarian is treated as a goal-oriented enterprise, such that the cognized goal (e. g., to be a humanitarian) brings forth numerous behaviors directed toward the individual’s trying to realize that self-defining goal. In the course of spelling out some of the dynamics of self-completion processes, we will show how the pursuit of self-completion has the side-effect of interfering with a variety of other types of cognition-behavior relations. For example, the relation between attitude and behavior, between intention and behavior, and even that between situational cues for behavior and actual behavior can all suffer demise or even elimination owing to the person’s pursuit of a self-defining goal.

The writing of this chapter was facilitated by a stipend to the second author from the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, Bonn-Bad Godesberg, and by NSF Grant BNS 7913828 to Melvin L. Snyder and Robert A. Wicklund.

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Authors
  1. Peter M. Gollwitzer
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  2. Robert A. Wicklund
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Max-Planck-Institut fĂĽr psychologische Forschung, Leopoldstrasse 24, D-8000, MĂĽnchen 40, Germany

    Julius Kuhl  & Jürgen Beckmann  & 

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© 1985 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Gollwitzer, P.M., Wicklund, R.A. (1985). The Pursuit of Self-Defining Goals. In: Kuhl, J., Beckmann, J. (eds) Action Control. SSSP Springer Series in Social Psychology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-69746-3_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-69746-3_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-69748-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-69746-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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