[TAG] Goals Are Contagious

People associate goals with other people, and the activation of a representation of such an important other can lead to automatic activation of these associated goals. This way, both goals that you often perform in the presence of an important other (e.g., you often help a particular friend) and goals that others have for you (e.g., your mother wants you to achieve) can be activated. Fitzsimons and Bargh demonstrated that merely thinking about an important other leads to the activation of goals…[1]

Note: This post is part of my TAG series - Tangential, Associative Germane. As part of my TAG series I hope to use short sound bites to reinforce the concepts of previous posts. The post this TAG refers to is Goals Are Contagious.

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[1] Ap Dijksterhuis & Pamela Smith,  et al., The Unconscious Consumer: Effects ofEnvironment on Consumer Behavior, 2005, 198.