Department of Psychology, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 1, 3584 CS Utrecht, Netherlands.
Science. 2010 Jul 2;329(5987):47-50. doi: 10.1126/science.1188595.
People often act in order to realize desired outcomes, or goals. Although behavioral science recognizes that people can skillfully pursue goals without consciously attending to their behavior once these goals are set, conscious will is considered to be the starting point of goal pursuit. Indeed, when we decide to work hard on a task, it feels as if that conscious decision is the first and foremost cause of our behavior. That is, we are likely to say, if asked, that the decision to act produced the actions themselves. Recent discoveries, however, challenge this causal status of conscious will. They demonstrate that under some conditions, actions are initiated even though we are unconscious of the goals to be attained or their motivating effect on our behavior. Here we analyze how goal pursuit can possibly operate unconsciously.
人们常常为了实现期望的结果或目标而采取行动。尽管行为科学认识到，一旦设定了目标，人们可以熟练地追求目标而无需有意识地关注自己的行为，但有意识的意志被认为是追求目标的起点。事实上，当我们决定努力完成一项任务时，我们会觉得这个有意识的决定是我们行为的首要原因。也就是说，如果被问到，我们很可能会说，行动的决定产生了行动本身。然而，最近的发现挑战了有意识的意志的这种因果地位。它们表明，在某些条件下，即使我们没有意识到要达到的目标或它们对我们行为的激励作用，行动也会被启动。在这里，我们分析目标追求如何可能无意识地进行。
