On the role of consciousness in goal pursuit

Abstract

Recent research has shown that goal pursuit can proceed unconsciously. That is, the entire process from goal activation to goal completion can take place without conscious awareness of the goal. This observation is somewhat paradoxical, because there is no denying that in daily life people are often consciously aware of the goals they pursue. The question is when and why? Here, we tested and confirmed the hypothesis that people become aware of their goals when goal pursuit is difficult. In two experiments, we demonstrated that unconsciously-activated goals are more likely to intrude into consciousness when goal progress is problematic.