The roles of goal representations and conflict monitoring in the initiation of goal-relevant actions

• Applicant: Dr. Andreas Kappes
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2011 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 195264321

Goal achievement demands recognizing the situations in which control is needed to instigate and enforce the actions that are crucial to achieve the goal (i.e., goal-relevant actions). But how is this need for control detected? So far, research on goals has mostly neglected this question. For example, research on goal-setting showed that the self-regulatory strategy of mentally contrasting a feasible, desired future with the present reality establishes goal representations, consisting of strong connections between future and reality, which then guide goal-relevant actions (Kappes, 2010). Yet, how do these goal representations instigate and enforce actions when they are needed? To answer this question, the proposed research project draws on the conflict monitoring hypothesis (Botvinick et al., 2001) which proposes that the brain constantly monitors the presence of conflict such as the activation of two opposing action tendencies (e.g., eating salad versus eating French fries). Once the conflict is detected, the need for control is signaled into prefrontal regions of the brain, which then enforce goal-relevant actions. In line with this reasoning, I propose that the goal representations established by mental contrasting foster the detection of goal-relevant conflict, thereby signaling the need for control to enforce goal-relevant actions. In the three parts of the proposed research project, I want to test this idea. Specifically, the research project aims to test a) whether the goal representations established by mental contrasting foster goal-relevant conflict detection which then instigates goal-relevant actions, b) whether the effects of conflict detection on the instigation of goal-relevant actions is mediated by the strengthening of goal representations, and c) how conflict detection and conflict control separately and/or jointly instigate goal-relevant actions.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Professor Dr. Tom Tyler