0.12 Self-regulation: a definition and introduction  (Page 3/3)

People can alter the goals they have, however there is going to be an incredibly complex set of unconsciousgoals that one is not aware of. These goals create multiple motivations as well as multiple concerns.Also, doing well at approaching an incentive is not quite the same experience as doing well at avoiding athreat. If you think about it, your emotions are going to be different if you achieve something you arestriving for then if you are threatened and respond because you are under pressure. It makes sense thatapproach is going to have such positive affects as elation, eagerness and excitement, and such negativeaffects as frusturation, anger and sadness. (Carver, 2004 Carver, C. S. (2004). Negative affects deriving from the behavioralapproach system. Emotion, 4, 3-22. ; Carver + Harmon-Jones, 2009 Carver, C. S., + Harmon-Jones, E. (2009). Anger is an approach-relatedaffect: Evidence and implications. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 183-204. ). Avoidance involves such positive affects as relief andcontentment (when someone avoids a threat, they are relieved and content) and such negative affects asfear, guilt and anxiety.

Goals can be changed by how motivated someone is to have that goal. Some goals can be brought intoconscious awareness at various times for various reasons. Simon (1967) Simon, H. A. (1967). Motivational and emotional controls ofcognition. Psychology Review, 74, 29-39. reasoned that emotions are calls for reprioritization: that emotionregarding a goal that is out of awareness eventually induces people to give that goal a higher priority.The stronger the emotion, the stronger the claim for higher priority. Affect pulls the out-of-awarenessinto awareness.

Simon's analysis applies readily to negative feelings, such as anxiety and frustration. If you promised yourspouse you would go to the post office today and you've been too busy, the creeping of the clock towardclosing time can cause an increase in frustration or anxiety (or both). The stronger the affect, the morelikely the goal it concerns will rise in priority until it comes into awareness and becomes thereference for behavior.

Therefore, it makes sense that the main goal you have and you know you have can reliquish its place. You areconstantly shifting the goals you have, you simply might not be aware that you are doing this. If youthink about it, people unconsciously might create many goals that they don't think about because they don'tunderstand that they are motivated to do those things. They simply don't know that they are trying to reachcertain objectives clearly. Take for instance sexual goals - people probably do many things to enhancesexual feelings without being aware that that is the motivation behind other goals they are consciouslystriving to achieve.

Emotionally people have many desires - all of these emotions are going to create and alter the variousgoals that people have (conscious and unconscious). If you think about that further, on a moment-by-momentbasis your emotions are going to be altered continuously by various goals - your emotions aregoing to be creating goals, objectives and whatnot. For instance, even with simple activities you may havean emotional goal that you aren't aware of. Say you are opening a door - maybe a previous event caused youto slow down when opening the door and going into the next area because your motivation was decreased so youweren't as excited about moving onto the next activity in your life.

A review

Further thoughts

There seems to be a large unconscious factor that is too complicated to be understood. The unconscious is so complicated, as it has many factors that are interacting with each other all of the time. When those factors mentioned in the previous paragraph are brought up (mental images, monitoring, cognitive strategies), along with the natural unconscious emotion and motivation that occurs always with humans, it becomes obvious that there is no telling what could be influencing your thinking and feeling (on a detailed, moment to moment basis and even just considering the obvious factors).