Previous research suggests that activating concepts of money and wealth can increase motivation to achieve personal goals. In this dissertation, I investigate how money affects pursuit of important personal goals, and how this motivation may be affected by goal attainability. In eight studies, I show that priming concepts of money and wealth leads individuals to pursue important personal goals to a greater degree than control groups, but only when a goal is more attainable. In contrast, when a goal is less attainable, those primed with money will be less likely to work towards goals relative to control groups. Furthermore, I examine why money may have a detrimental effect on motivation when individuals are faced with less attainable but important goals, and argue those primed with money become more concerned with maintaining a sense of efficacy, and thus disengage from pursuit when success is less certain. Thus, this research identifies the needs made salient by activating money-"validating one's abilities. Finally, I show the relevance of these findings for consumer behavior, and discuss the additional implications of this work, as well as future research directions. / Ph. D.

Research indicates that planning helps consumers in their goal pursuit, but little is known about how and when such beneficial effects change with regulatory fit – fit between consumers’ regulatory orientation and goal pursuit means. Results of three studies show that 1) the benefits of forming implementation intentions, or planning details such as when, where, how, and how long to perform goal-directed actions and attain consumer goals are stronger in regulatory nonfit situations (study 1), and 2) implementation intentions can be viewed as goal pursuit means and be part of the regulatory fit formulation to show the “value from fit” effect on instrumental behavior and goal attainment (studies 2 and 3). Specifically, study 1 showed that consumers in regulatory nonfit situations are more likely to perform instrumental behavior and have higher goal attainment by forming implementation intentions than consumers in regulatory fit situations. This research also provides empirical evidence of the notion of “value from fit” to the regulatory fit literature, that is, the mediating role of motivation intensity in the regulatory fit-instrumental behavior and regulatory fit-goal attainment linkages in studies 2 and 3.

The World Health Organization (WHO) promotes physical activity as a primary way to maintain health, but many individuals do not participate in this health-promoting behavior. Despite the potential for public service announcements (PSAs) to communicate health information and promote behavioral change, no prior research on developing video PSAs to promote physical activity was found. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to examine how affective and information video PSAs for a public health campaign affect future levels of intention to engage in physical activity. The PSAs were developed and filmed specific for this study using the model of goal directed behavior (MGDB) as the foundation for PSA development. Participants were recruited to view PSAs with the message foci of empathy, fear, information, and combination messages to determine which focus area is perceived to be most persuasive for promoting physical activity. This research examined moderating effects of current physical activity habits related to the duration of physical activity and the covariance with stage of change readiness. Differences in perceived effectiveness between the different message foci were found with participants perceiving the empathy video as most effective, followed by combination, with fear and information being perceived as least effective. For participants who meet WHO recommendations for exercise activity, the PSA based on fear was most effective, with fear also being most effective for those participants right below that level of physical activity. Many participants (61%) had a positive affect while watching the four PSA videos. Social implications related to improving public health communication through video PSAs that effectively promote health behavior change.

Counterfeit consumption is becoming widespread, developing into a problem of international significance. In an attempt to develop a refined understanding of the motivations and decision-making processes of consumers' deliberate counterfeit-consumption behavior, this empirical study not only integrates the theory of planned behavior and insights from self-regulatory theories, but also extends these theories by re-conceptualizing the relationships among key constructs with the inclusion of action desire. This research also introduces and integrates a new construct, namely consumers' Perceived Counterfeit Detection (PCD) by important others.Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods consisting of in-depth interviews and a self-administered paper questionnaire, this research empirically tested a proposed goal-striving model for deliberate counterfeit-consumption behavior, using structural equations modeling. Results demonstrated PCD's existence and supported a refined goal-striving model, based upon which effective strategies to decrease consumer's counterfeit consumption are discussed.

Nicotine has multiple behavioral effects as a result of its action in the central nervous system. Nicotine strengthens the behaviors that lead to nicotine administration (primary reinforcement), and this effect of nicotine depends on mesotelencephalic systems of the brain that are critical to goal directed behavior, reward, and reinforcement. Nicotine also serves as a ‘reinforcement enhancer’ – drug administration enhances behaviors that lead to other drug and nondrug reinforcers. Although the reinforcement enhancing effects of nicotine may promote tobacco use in the face of associated negative health outcomes, the neuroanatomical systems that mediate this effect of nicotine have never been described. The ventral tegmental area (VTA) is a nucleus that serves as a convergence point in the mesotelencephalic system, plays a substantial role in reinforcement by both drug and nondrug rewards and is rich in both presynaptic and postsynaptic nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). Therefore, these experiments were designed to determine the role of the VTA and nAChR subtypes in the reinforcement enhancing effect of nicotine. Transiently inhibiting the VTA with a gamma amino butyric acid (GABA) agonist cocktail (baclofen and muscimol) reduced both primary reinforcement by a visual stimulus and the reinforcement enhancing effect of nicotine, without producing nonspecific suppression of activity. Intra-VTA infusions of a high concentration of mecamylamine a nonselective nAChR antagonist, or methylycaconitine, an α7 nAChR antagonist, did not reduce the reinforcement enhancing effect of nicotine. Intra-VTA infusions of a low concentration of mecamylamine and dihydro-beta-erythroidine (DHβE), a selective antagonist of nAChRs containing the *β2 subunit, attenuated, but did not abolish, the reinforcement enhancing effect of nicotine. In follow-up tests replacing systemic nicotine injections with intra-VTA infusions (70mM, 105mM) resulted in complete substitution of the reinforcement enhancing effects – increases in operant responding were comparable to giving injections of systemic nicotine. These results suggest that *β2-subunit containing nAChRs in the VTA play a role in the reinforcement enhancing effect of nicotine. However, when nicotine is administered systemically these reinforcement enhancing effects may depend on the action of nicotine at nAChRs in multiple brain nuclei.

We examined associations between trait hope and preparation for future care needs (PFCN) among 66 older adult primary care patients in western New York. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing PFCN (awareness, information gathering, decision-making, concrete planning, and avoidance), and the Adult Trait Hope Scale. In multivariate regressions, lower hope, particularly less agency, was associated with more awareness of needing care, whereas higher hopefulness, particularly pathways thinking, was associated with increased decision-making and concrete planning. Greater hopefulness appears to be linked to goal-directed planning behaviors, although those with lower hope may actually be more aware of the need for planning. Evidence-based programming that encourages learned hopefulness may contribute to enhanced health planning and decision-making among older adult primary care patients.

Theories of addiction posit a deficit in goal-directed behavior and an increased propensity toward habitual actions in individuals with substance use disorders. Control over drug intake is assumed to shift from goal-directed to automatic or habitual motivation as the disorder progresses. Several diagnostic criteria reflect the inability to pursue goals regarding reducing or controlling drug use and performing social or occupational functions. The current review gives an overview of the mechanisms underlying the goal-directed and habitual systems in humans, and the existing paradigms that aim to evaluate them. We further summarize the current state of research on habitual and goal-directed functioning in individuals with substance use disorders. Current evidence of alterations in addiction and substance use are mixed and need further investigation. Increased habitual responding has been observed in more severely affected groups with contingency degradation and some outcome devaluation tasks. Reduced model-based behavior has been mainly observed in alcohol use disorder and related to treatment outcomes. Motor sequence learning tasks might provide a promising new approach to examine the development of habitual behavior. In the final part of the review, we discuss possible implications and further developments regarding the influence of contextual factors, such as state and trait variations, and recent advances in task design.

The purpose of this study was to better understand the goal-striving process in the context of non-problem gambler’s responsible gambling. More specifically, the primary aim of this study was to elucidate the hierarchical structure of goals, the role of the motivational phase of the goal-striving process, and the influence of cognitive evaluation and affective regulation on the goal-striving process. In the first part of the study, a conceptual model is proposed, in which the intrinsic factors used to predict non-problem gamblers’ intentions to gamble responsibly are delineated and tested according to the extension of the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985, 1991), the model of action phases (Gollwitzer, 1990, 1993), the model of goal-directed behavior (Perugini & Bagozzi, 2001; Perugini & Conner, 2000), and the model of effortful decision making and enactment (Bagozzi, Dholakia, & Basuroy, 2003; Dholakia, Bagozzi, & Gopinath, 2007). Four cognitive factors explain the motivational phase of the goal-striving process, and were incorporated in the current study. One factor explains the goal-oriented behavior at abstract level (i.e., goal feasibility), and the other three explain implementation of action-oriented behavior at concrete level (i.e., attitude toward implementing the actions necessary to achieve the goal, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control). In addition, two ways of emotional regulation were incorporated to explain the goal-oriented behavior at abstract level. That is, prefactual emotional valence factors related to the success and failure of future goal attainment (anticipated positive and negative emotions) affect goal desire. To sum up, this study anticipated that the proposed antecedent constructs (two anticipated emotions, goal feasibility, attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control) were strong indicators of how non-problem casino patrons would strive to achieve the goal (i.e., maturing or developing responsible gambling behavior) through a goal-striving process, where the motivational phase plays a critical role in explaining intention to gamble responsibly. A secondary goal of the study was to explore how responsible gambling strategies implemented by the gambling industry influence non-problem casino customers’ goal-directed behavior in a responsible gambling setting. Given the ongoing controversy about the effectiveness of responsible gambling strategies, the focus in the second part of the current study was on how situational arousal factors (i.e., psychological reactance) with regard to external interventions (i.e., compulsory and supplementary responsible gambling strategies) would affect implementation intention, based on the psychological reactance theory (J. W. Brehm, 1989; S. S. Brehm & Brehm, 1981). In other words, situational arousal factors were incorporated herein to explain the extrinsic part of the goal-striving process model. This study was designed to facilitate an understanding of how and why external interventions may fail to deliver the intended effect in the responsible gambling context. In order to take into account the varying effectiveness of responsible gambling strategies, an effort was made to discern between the different effects of each responsible gambling strategy type and to understand in greater detail how these effects were moderated by individual disposition, and especially the strength of the individual’s desire for control. A clear understanding of the moderating effect enables a richer understanding of the effectiveness of responsible gambling strategies with regard to responsible gambling behavior by non-problem casino patrons. Insight gained from the study through analysis of the results is discussed, and important theoretical and practical implications and future research agendas presented in the conclusion. / Tourism and Sport

The basal ganglia (BG) is known for its function not only in motor modulation but also in action selection and reward learning. There are two major anatomical pathways through the BG, the direct and the indirect pathways. The direct pathway starts from the striatum and then directly projects to the globus pallidus, pars interna (GPi) and the substantia nigra, pars reticulata (SNr) respectively, while the indirect pathway starts from the striatum but then indirectly projects to GPi and SNr through the globus pallidus, pars externa and then to the subthalamic nucleus. In addition, the output from GPi not only projects to the thalamus where it has been proposed to function in motor control, but also to the lateral habenula (LHb) where it has been proposed to function in outcome evaluation. Previous studies have found that there are three major genetically distinct neuron groups in the entopeduncular nucleus (EP) (rodent homologue of the primate GPi): 1) purely glutamatergic neurons projecting to LHb neurons expressing parvalbumin (PVLHb); 2) purely GABAergic neurons projecting to motor thalamic neurons expressing parvalbumin (PVThal); 3) GABA/glutamate co-releasing neurons projecting to LHb neurons expressing somatostatin (SstLHb). In this study, we knocked out the vesicular glutamate transporter 2 in SstLHb neurons through an adeno-associated virus in mice to test for the impact on goal-directed behavior using a probabilistic switching, two-armed bandit task (2ABT). Results obtained from the freely moving, water-restricted somatostatin-cre mice with the vesicular glutamate transporter 2 ablated in SstLHb neurons showed that: 1) there was neither improvement nor decline in their performance on the task; 2) they might be more distracted between trials while more concentrated within a trial; 3) they had an increase in the probability of switching between ports on consecutive trials when uncertainty in the location of the highly rewarded port was maximum compared to the control animals with intact glutamate release from SstLHb neurons to LHb. The success of the viral expression was then confirmed through whole-cell voltage-clamp recordings of postsynaptic neurons of the LHb, receiving projections from SstLHb neurons. In conclusion, our study has suggested that the glutamate release from the GABA/glutamate co-releasing neurons of EP projecting to LHb may play a role in reinforcement learning and motivation to obtain rewards, and the loss of glutamate in the GABA/glutamate co-releasing vesicles results in increasing uptake of GABA into these vesicles, leading to possible rebound burst firing of SstLHb neurons that eventually increases the sensitivity towards low rate of reward-delivery dramatically. / 2026-03-13T00:00:00Z

Goal-directed actions frequently require a balance between antagonistic processes (e.g., executing and inhibiting a response), often showing an interdependency concerning what constitutes goal-directed behavior. While an inter-dependency of antagonistic actions is well described at a behavioral level, a possible inter-dependency of underlying processes at a neuronal level is still enigmatic. However, if there is an interdependency, it should be possible to predict the neurophysiological processes underlying inhibitory control based on the neural processes underlying speeded automatic responses. Based on that rationale, we applied artificial intelligence and source localization methods to human EEG recordings from N = 255 participants undergoing a response inhibition experiment (Go/Nogo task). We show that the amplitude and timing of scalp potentials and their functional neuroanatomical sources during inhibitory control can be inferred by conditional generative adversarial networks (cGANs) using neurophysiological data recorded during response execution. We provide insights into possible limitations in the use of cGANs to delineate the interdependency of antagonistic actions on a neurophysiological level. Nevertheless, artificial intelligence methods can provide information about interdependencies between opposing cognitive processes on a neurophysiological level with relevance for cognitive theory.