This paper argues that habits, just like beliefs, can guide intentional action. To do this, a variety of real-life cases where a person acts habitually but contrary to her beliefs are discussed. The cases serve as dissociations showing that intentional agency is possible without doxastic guidance. The upshot is a model for thinking about the rationality of habitual action and the rationalizing role that habits can play in it. The model highlights the role that our history and institutions play in (...) shaping what actions become habitual for us. (shrink)

Dual process theorists in psychology maintain that the mind’s workings can be explained in terms of conscious or controlled processes and automatic processes. Automatic processes are largely nonconscious, that is, triggered by environmental stimuli without the agent’s conscious awareness or deliberation. Automaticity researchers contend that even higher level habitual social behaviors can be nonconsciously primed. This article brings work on automaticity to bear on our understanding of habitual virtuous actions. After examining a recent intuitive account of habitual actions and habitual (...) virtuous actions, the author offers her own explanation in terms of goal-dependent automaticity. This form of automaticity provides an account of habitual virtuous actions that explains the sense in which these actions are rational, that is, done for reasons. Habitual virtuous actions are rational in the sense of being purposive or goal-directed and are essentially linked with the agent’s psychological states. Unlike deliberative virtuous actions, the agent’s reasons for habitual virtuous actions are not present to her conscious awareness at the time of acting. (shrink)

How can we explain the intentional nature of an expert’s actions, performed without immediate and conscious control, relying instead on automatic cognitive processes? How can we account for the differences and similarities with a novice’s performance of the same actions? Can a naturalist explanation of intentional expert action be in line with a philosophical concept of intentional action? Answering these and related questions in a positive sense, this dissertation develops a three-step argument. Part I considers different methods of explanations in (...) cognitive neuroscience (Bennett & Hacker’s philosophical, conceptual analysis; Marr’s three levels of explanation; Neural Correlates of Consciousness research; mechanistic explanation), defending ‘mechanistic explanation’ as a method that provides the necessary tools for integrating interdisciplinary insights into human action. Furthermore, a dynamic, explanatory mechanism allows the assessment of the impact of learning and development on expert action in a valuable way that other methods don’t. Part II continues by scrutinizing several cognitive neuroscientific theories of learning and development (neuroconstructivism; dual-processing theories; simulation theory; extended mind/cognition hypothesis), arguing for the complex interactions between different types of processing and different action representations involved in expert action performances. Moreover, according to our discussion of a particular ‘simulation theory’ these interactions can be influenced in several ways with the use of language, allowing an agent to configure a specific action representation for performance at a later stage. The results of Parts I and II are then applied in Part III to a parallel discussion of philosophical analyses of intentional action (discussing i.a. Frankfurt, Bratman, Pacherie and Ricoeur) and cognitive neuroscientific insights in it. Both approaches are found to converge in emphasizing the importance for an expert to develop stable patterns of actions that comply maximally not only with his intentions, but also with his motor expertise and with situational conditions. Consequently, his actions – automatic, or not – rely on this ‘sculpted space of actions’. (shrink)

Objectives: Habitually instigated exercise is thought to increase health behavior maintenance. Previous research has explored several aspects of habit formation. However, there is a lack of longitudinal research investigating affective determinants, especially post-exercise affective states. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate a) if behavior frequency will enhance automaticity, b) if positive affect will enhance automaticity, and c) if positive affect will moderate the relationship between behavior frequency and automaticity. Methods: 226 participants (64% females, mean age 24 years) who attended (...) weekly sports and gym classes at two universities were followed for 13 weeks. Class attendance was documented on a weekly basis (behavior frequency) during the semester. Before, during and immediately after each class, participants filled in the Feeling Scale (affective valence). Furthermore, at the beginning of each class, they answered a question about their automaticity in arriving at the decision to attend the class (instigation habit). We used a two-level modeling approach to predict subsequent automaticity by the different constructs at the previous attendance. Results: The cumulative frequency of prior class attendance did not significantly enhance the automaticity of the decision to re-attend the class. There were significant effects of valence on automaticity on the between-subject level, i.e., a one-point higher mean valence score was associated with a 0.62 point increase in automaticity (p=.001). No moderation effects of affect on the association between behavior frequency and automaticity were observed. Conclusions: Behavior repetition, albeit not significant, and positive affective states at the end of an exercise class may be beneficial in building exercise instigation habits. Practitioners and researchers alike may thus want to emphasize the importance of behavior repetition and affective response for health behavior maintenance. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that storing predictive relations between two events in memory as bi-directional associations does not require conscious awareness of this relation, whereas the formation of unidirectional associations that capture the direction of the relation does. This study reports a set of experiments demonstrating that unidirectional associations can be formed even when awareness of the relation is actively prevented, if attention is “tuned” to process predictive relations. When participants engaged in predicting targets based on cues in an unrelated (...) task before the actual acquisition phase, unidirectional associations were formed during this acquisition phase even though E1 was presented subliminally. This suggests that although processing the relation between events may often be accompanied by awareness of this relation, awareness is not a prerequisite for the formation of unidirectional associations. (shrink)

Recent research suggests that one can have the feeling of being the cause of an action’s outcome, even in the absence of a prior intention to act. That is, experienced self-agency over behavior increases when outcome representations are primed outside of awareness, prior to executing the action and observing the resulting outcome. Based on the notion that behavior can be represented at different levels, we propose that priming outcome representations is more likely to augment self-agency experiences when the primed representation (...) corresponds with a person’s behavior representation level. Three experiments, using different priming and self-agency tasks, both measuring and manipulating the level of behavior representation, confirmed this idea. Priming high level outcome representations enhanced experienced self-agency over behavior more strongly when behavior was represented at a higher level, rather than a lower level. Thus, priming effects on self-agency experiences critically depend on behavior representation level. (shrink)

Consumers of software often face an acquisition-mode decision, namely whether to purchase or pirate that software. In terms of consumer welfare, consumers who pirate software may stand in opposition to those who purchase it. Marketers also face a decision whether to attempt to thwart that piracy or to ignore, if not encourage it as an aid to their software's diffusion, and policymakers face the decision whether to adopt interventionist policies, which are government-centric, or laissez faire policies, which are marketer-centric. Here (...) in order to assess the decision-making of all three of these stakeholders, we focus on the consumer's point-of-view as central and examine it by considering on a comparative basis the ethical dimension versus other dimensions, including economic, legal, and other salient consumer behavior considerations. Based on a survey of 689 software consumers conducted over the Internet, the results indicate that ethics as a factor is embedded in a multidimensional set of determinant factors influencing software piracy, including attitudes, legal aspects, social support, perceptions of economic loss and age. Policy and research implications, based on these findings, are provided. (shrink)

This article addresses major arguments in the controversy about the “rationality” of moral behavior: can moral behavior be explained by rational choice theory (RCT)? The two positions discussed are the incentives thesis (norms are incentives as any other costs and benefits) and the autonomy thesis claiming that moral behavior has nothing to do with utility. The article analyses arguments for the autonomy thesis by J. Elster, A. Etzioni, and J. G. March and J. P. Olsen. Finally, the general claim is (...) discussed whether norm following and norm emergence are utility maximizing. The conclusion is that the autonomy thesis is not tenable if one applies a wide subjectivist, social psychological version of RCT that includes the assumption of “bounded rationality.” The autonomy thesis is only compatible with a narrow version of RCT that excludes internal outcomes and that refers to norms that do not have external outcomes. It is argued that such a narrow version is not capable of explaining many forms of behavior social scientists are interested in. (shrink)

This study examined cognitive representations of routine action, through the assessment of level of agency, in individuals with sub-clinical checking. The level of agency stems from Action Identification Theory [Vallacher, R. R., Wegner, D. M. . Levels of personal agency: Individual variation in action identification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57, 660–671], which states that how actions are usually identified reflects the predominant accessibility of internal representation . Furthermore, this framework proposed that altered action regulation is related to low-level (...) of agency . In the current study, the main result indicated that checking symptoms were related to a low-level of agency, that is, individuals with sub-clinical checking identified habitual actions on the basis of instrumental aspects. This seems to indicate that checkers may act with a lack of goal representations. The results are discussed in terms of the role of low-level of agency in checking phenomena and related cognitive dysfunction. (shrink)

We provide the first demonstration of an artificial neural network encoding the perceptual templates that form an important component of the high level strategic understanding developed by experts. Experts have a highly refined sense of knowing where to look, what information is important and what information to ignore. The conclusions these experts reach are of a higher quality and typically made in a shorter amount of time than those of non-experts. Understanding the manifestation of such abilities in terms of both (...) the psychology of expert performance and the underlying neural mechanisms constitutes one of the most challenging problems in the cognitive sciences. Using perceptual templates we show how the amount of contextual information can change significantly even within a given task, the relationship between local and non-local contexts and finally why there is very little correlation between measures of intelligence and level of expertise in many of the most complex tasks performed by humans. (shrink)

As consumers represent a key actor for the success of businesses implementing socially responsible strategies, companies need to gain further insights on the determinants of responsible behaviors. In this study, we provide a contribution to the ongoing debate on responsible consumers by means of an integrative literature review, which analyzes a set of competing models mainly from social psychology and marketing. Stemming from this preliminary analysis of the existing evidence, we develop a new conceptual model, that is, a framework based (...) on (i) a flexible setting of the boundaries of analysis, (ii) a broader lens taking into account interrelations across behaviors, and (iii) a dynamic approach. The framework, for which an exemplary use is illustrated, represents the basis for advancing a rich agenda for future research. The latter is aimed at overcoming current criticalities in responsible consumer research, and it develops around the need for an integrative, dynamic, and cross-cultural approach on the one hand, and the elaboration of new perspectives on single antecedents, on the other. (shrink)

The paper explores the topic of organizational routines from a philosophical vantage point to see how the philosophy of action may help improve its understanding in organizational research. The main goal is to show the distinctive complexity of the intentional picture of routines. In this respect, the paper clarifies the interrelations between psychological habits and routines and describes similarities and differences between them. It also highlights the special place of mindfulness as a psycho-cognitive mechanism of action meta-control in intentional explanations (...) of routine complexity. (shrink)

Forming implementation intentions has been consistently shown to be a powerful self-regulatory strategy. As the self-regulation of thoughts is important for the experience of involuntariness in the hypnotic context, investigating the effectiveness of implementation intentions on the suppression of thoughts was the focus of the present study. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions . Results showed that participants who received information included in the “Carleton Skill Training Program” and in addition formed implementation intentions improved their hypnotic responsiveness (...) as compared to all of the other three groups on measures of objective responding and involuntary responding. Thus, in line with the nonstate or cognitive social–psychological view of hypnosis stating that an individual’s hypnotic suggestibility is not dispositional but modifiable, our results suggest that hypnotic responsiveness can be heightened by furnishing hypnotic instructions with ad hoc implementation intentions. (shrink)

Physicians, nurses, and other clinicians readily acknowledge being troubled by encounters with patients who trigger moral judgments. For decades social scientists have noted that moral judgment of patients is pervasive, occurring not only in egregious and criminal cases but also in everyday situations in which appraisals of patients' social worth and culpability are routine. There is scant literature, however, on the actual prevalence and dynamics of moral judgment in healthcare. The indirect evidence available suggests that moral appraisals function via a (...) complex calculus that reflects variation in patient characteristics, clinician characteristics, task, and organizational factors. The full impact of moral judgment on healthcare relationships, patient outcomes, and clinicians' own well-being is yet unknown. The paucity of attention to moral judgment, despite its significance for patient-centered care, communication, empathy, professionalism, healthcare education, stereotyping, and outcome disparities, represents a blind spot that merits explanation and repair. New methodologies in social psychology and neuroscience have yielded models for how moral judgment operates in healthcare and how research in this area should proceed. Clinicians, educators, and researchers would do well to recognize both the legitimate and illegitimate moral appraisals that are apt to occur in healthcare settings. (shrink)

Mental simulations and implementation intentions are two self-regulation techniques that further successful goal attainment. The present research examined whether the two mindsets associated with the two techniques differed regarding processing of information. The first two studies indicated that mental simulation induces a mindset associated with more open-minded processing of information, while implementation intentions induce a mindset associated with more closed-minded processing of information. The final two studies investigated activation levels of mental representations of mental simulation and implementation intention via a (...) lexical decision task. Forming implementation intentions was found to result in heightened activation of both situational cues and behavioral responses compared to mental simulation. The implications of these findings are discussed on the basis of the model of action phases. (shrink)