Advantage, implementation intentions!

Sebastian’s note #3: Goal striving is potentially shielded by mentally linking detrimental inner states to coping responses

Roger Federer @ BNP Paribas 2012 Open vs Federer. Photo by Mike McCune.

Source: Achtziger, A., Gollwitzer, P.M. and Sheeran, P., 2008. Implementation intentions and shielding goal striving from unwanted thoughts and feelings. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(3), pp.381–393.

Implementation intentions

Two types of intentions according to Gollwitzer (1993)

• Goal intention: goal in the common sense: an end state an individual wantes to attain (e.g., “I want to eat healthy!”)
• Implementation intentions (IIs): specify when where and how goal-directed responses should be initiated; “if situation X arises, then I will do Y” (e.g., “If I order something in my favorite restaurant, I will take a meal consistent with [insert your favorite diet]!”)

Heightened cognitive accessibility

• Several studies indicate that IIs work based on heightened cognitive accessibility.
• The mental representation of the specified cue (the “X” in the II) becomes highly activated, making it easier to detect the cue in relevant contexts and attend to the it.
• Subjects asked to form IIs attend to and recall situations specified in the II better than participant asked to form goal intentions.

Two challenges in goal striving

• To attain a goal, an individual must first initiate goal-directed responses and then shield the ongoing striving from antagonistic (internal and external) forces.
• Four groups of such forces can be distinguished: (1) distractions and temptations, (2) unexpected external obstacles (e.g., social loafing), (3) detrimental inner states (e.g., anxietys, fears, moods) and (4) an activation of an antagonistic goal leading to goal conflict
• Prior studies have focused on the effect of IIs on the challenge of initiating goal-directed responses. The two studies summarized below focus on the potential of IIs protect ongoing goal striving.

Study 1: Controlling cravings

Elaborated intrusion theory of desire (EITD)

• According to EIT, intrusive thoughts alone place little demand on cognitive resources.
• However, when an intrusive thought elicits a strong affective reaction, the thought is elaborated upon. Processes of attention and working memory are altered and further cues might be accessed, causing even more intrusive thought.
• The key idea is to use IIs to prevent the elaboration of intrusive thought and, consequently, shield goal striving.
• In study 1, reduced consumption is of high-fat food is the goal and food cravings are the intrusive thoughs.

Participants and procedure

• N=92 undergraduates (74 women)
• Baseline questionnaire, covering, among other things, the following aspects: (a) patterns of high-fat food consumption: in particular, the high-fat food they ate the most of (e.g., chocolate, Pizza, French fries) (b) goal intention: “I intend to halve my consumption of [that particular high-fat food] I ate in the next week”, “definitely no” to “defintely yes”), (c) perceived control: how confident they are in attaining the goal
• Two conditions:
  Control condition: no instruction form any intentions
  II condition: Participants were asked to say the following line to themselves three times and to commit themselves to acting on it “[I]f I think about my chosen food, then I will ignore that thought!’
• Follow-up questionnaire, a week later: number of times they ate the specified food

Results

• Goal intentions were generally weak, with more than half of participants scoring below the midpoint on the intention scale.
• Overall reduction in onsumption across both groups: 4.2 times at baseline vs. 3.0 times at follow-up
• Participants in the II condition reduced consumption to a significantly greater extent: 1.6 vs. 0.7 less occurrences of consumption.
• Participants in the II group achieved their goal: no significant difference between the goal (half of baseline consumption) and reported consumption at follow-up in the II group.
• Caveat: II formation was not associated with consumption at follow-up for participants with weak or moderately strong goal intentions.

Study 2: Controlling negative inner states

Playing with implementation intentions

• Negative inner states are detrimental to athletic performance, especially in sports that involve direct competition with an opponent.
• Study 2 explored the effects of intentions on performance in a tennis match relative to performance in previous matches.
• The key here is to link relevant negative inner states to coping responses that are known to be effective.

Participants and procedure

• N = 107 tennis players from different German leagues (76 men; aged from 14 to 68)
• Three conditions:
  Control condition: Participants were not asked to form intentions.
  Goal intention condition: The day before the match, participants formed the intention: “I will play each ball with utmost concentration and effort in order to with the match!”
  II condition: Same goal intention as the second group. In addition, participants in this group selected 4 negative inner states from a list of 18 options. They linked each of the chosen states with a coping response from a list of 102 options to form IIs that were written down on a sheet of paper.
• The 18 inner states can be grouped into (a) cognitive (e.g., “not concentrating enough), (b) motivational (e.g., “feeling self-abandoned”), (c) physiological (e.g., “feeling exhausted) and (d) emotional (e.g., “feeling angry”).
• The list of coping responses included options such as “… then I will risk something and play courageously!” and “… then I will calm myself and tell myself ‘I will win’”.
• Groups did not differ w.r.t to gender/rank of league/rank within league/years of experience/ability to cope with defeat/whether the match was a home match or not.
• Using a visual scale, participants and their trainers or teammates (depending on availability) compared their fitness and performance during the match to former matches. (All were blind to the hypothesis.)

Result

• Participants in the II condition both rated themselves better on both dimensions (fitness and performance) and were rated better by trainers/teammates compared to participants in the other two groups.

Extension of previous II literature

• Prior studies used external cues (e.g., locations or times) in the if-part of IIs and goal-directed responses in then then-component to get started with a goal.
  The two studies summarized here suggest that internal cues (negative states) can be linked to coping responses (e.g, emotion regulation techniques) in an effort to shield goal striving from detrimental inner states.
• Importantly, participants in the II condition of the second study choose their own implementation intentions from a set of 18 possible if-parts and 102 possible then-parts. (In prior studies, IIs were usually defined by researchers than participants.) This suggests that IIs can be tailored to individual goal strivings.

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