The Social Regulation of Activity: Implications for Behavior Enactment and Change

Monday, October 08, 2012

Dolores Albarracin

Professor of Psychology
University of Illinois

My colleagues and I have proposed that behavior is largely controlled by general goals to be active or inactive regardless of the specific behaviors meeting these goals (trivial and important behaviors, planned and impulsive behaviors). General action goals are defined as the commitment to behavior leading to high motor or cognitive output, whereas general inaction goals are defined as the commitment to behavior leading to low motor or cognitive output. The concepts of general action and inaction have important theoretical and practical implications for psychology and allied disciplines, such as marketing, political science, and public health. In this talk, I will describe effects of these goals on physical and mental actions, as well as multi-behavior change, and will consider the goals’ relation to impulsivity and culture and religious beliefs.