[From Rick Marken (2015.10.11.1600)]
JC: Hello all PCTers!
JC: My 1st ever post here (email),
RM: Welcome! Thanks for posting.
JC: Â I have recently come across ‘volition and implementation intentions’ and I
wanted to know a bit more about the intrcacies of goal setting/attainment
etc.
RM: You’ve come to the right place;-)
JC: If you do have time, please read the forbes article (It’s short and sweet,
but really makes a case for ‘If/Then’ statements to achive goals
(implementation intentions).
RM: I don’t think so. The experiment described in the article can be understood in terms of the subjects’ goal of trying to give the experimenter what was wanted. All subjects expressed an intention to exercise. But they had to guess that the experimenter would be interested in a future report of whether or not they had actually exercised. The control group could have had no idea what the experimenter wanted because they were told nothing. The Exp 1 group, who were given “educational materials correlating exercise and good cardio-vascular health” had a little more to go on but were just as likely to suspect that the experimenter was interested in their cardio-vascular health rather than their exercise. The Exp 2 group was asked to report exactly what their exercise schedule would be. So they could be pretty sure that the experimenter was interested in whether or not they did, in fact, exercise.Â
RM: So the results are not surprising at all, assuming that the subjects’ goal was to please the experimenter, and there is a lot of research that says most subjects do want to give the experimenter what is wanted. But this explanation could also be checked by following up on group Exp 2 (the “if-then” group) about their exercise after they believe they have completed the experiment. My prediction is that if you secretly monitor the exercising of the Exp 2 group after the experiment is completed you will find that they exercise the same amount as group Exp 2. Indeed, if you secretly monitor group Exp 2 before getting their report you are likely to find that their actual exercise rate was not much greater than group Exp 1 since many probably reported exercising just to please the experimenter.Â
RM: From a PCT perspective, the only reason why a person doesn’t carry out an expressed intention is because they also have the intention of not carrying out that intention. That is, the subjects are in conflict. When you feel like you have to force yourself to do something, like exercise, it’s because you also want to not do it. Such a conflict cannot be resolved by filling out the blanks in if-then statements. They can only be resolved via reorganization, which can be done more effectively using the Method of Levels (MOL), a therapy approach based on PCT. I recommend Tim Carey’s book on the subject:
http://www.amazon.com/Timothy-A.-Carey/e/B00E5A62IK/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1444601743&sr=1-2-ent
This book is an excellent introduction to the PCT theory of intentional (purposeful) behavior (also known as CONTROL) and shows why we often have difficulty carrying out our intentions. It’s because of conflict.
JC: So, why email this here, and what does this have to do with PCT?
JC: Â In the article the author called Gollwitzer at NYU to ask him him why our
brains process if-then statements so differently from mere goal intentions.
JC: Â His reply was as follows;
“When you have a goal intention –  ˜I want to achieve an outcome’ – the ‘I’<
is in the middle of it,� he said. “It’s a top-down regulation of action.
RM: This is just wrong, There is no “regulation of action” when you have a goal intention; what is regulated is perception (input) not action (output). Action must vary as necessary to protect the intended result from disturbance. Since disturbances are unpredictable (and usually undetectable) you can’t know what actions you will have to take in order to produce the intended result (perception). The actions you take are determined by the effect of disturbances to the intended result; they are not “regulated” by the intentional (control) system itself.Â
 Gollwitzer:  It’s me who regulates where I want to go.Â
RM: Yes, according to PCT you regulate (control) the state of the intended result, not the means (actions) you use to do the regulation (control).Â
 Gollwitzer: The if-then plan delegates the  control to an external stimulus.
RM: This is also wrong. An if-then plan (like “if it’s Tuesday then exercise”) can’t delegate. The if-then plan is just a written description of the goal state of a perception. The person writing it is telling the experimenter the goal (we call it a reference state) for a perception he is going to control for. That goal will be achieved if the person perceives himself exercising on Tuesday. The person controls the state of the if-then relationship; nothing in the if-then relationship controls the person.Â
Gollwitzer: Â It links the situation to the response, so
it’s the stimulus, not you, that controls the action. It’s a switch from
top-down to bottom-up.�
RM: It only looks like that to people who don’t understand control and the PCT explanation of how control works. In PCT we call it the “behavioral illusion”, the illusion that external events cause behavior.Â
JC: Â I’ve highlighted the problem phrase I seem to be wrestling with.
In PCT , stimulus doesn’t control the action, it’s you, your pre
determined reference signal, that you constantly are comparing to
perceptual external stimuli (disturbance) through all your senses that means
your behaviour is the control of perception.
RM: Right! We control perception, not action.Â
JC: So, if what I’ve said above is correct (please correct me if I’m wrong),
hasn’t Gollwitzer got this so wrong?
RM: Yes.
JC: I mean the guy has studied goals etc since 1980, he obviously knows alot ,
RM: He’'s just making the same mistake that all psychologists are making. Â
JC: I mean he truely is an expert in this field, but again, correct me if I’m
wrong here;Â 35 years of great great research that is fundamentally flawed from the
bottom up (or top down), which every way you want to look at it.
He still believes stimulus controls our actions.
RM: As do all psychologists. It’s not a problem of lack of expertise or intelligence. The problem is not knowing that people CONTROL (produce pre-selected – goal-- results in a disturbance prone environment) and knowing how control works ( PCT explains how control – intentional or purposeful behavior – works).Â
JC: Â Maybe an email about PCT would be an eye opener for him.
RM: I’m quite sure it wouldn’t. The only people who really “get” PCT are those who are willing to give up all their pre-conceptions about what behavior is and how it works. And most psychologists are not willing to do this, for reasons I discuss in my paper “You Say You Had a Revolution” which is reprinted in my book “Doing Research on Purpose”, also available from Amazon at:Â
http://www.amazon.com/Doing-Research-Purpose-Experimental-Psychology/dp/0944337554/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407342866&sr=8-1&keywords=doing+research+on+purpose
RM: People don’t give up their existing perspective and go to PCT because there are careers, prestige and reputations on the line. It’s not easy to change one’s fundamental assumptions, especially later in one’s career. So very few  have actually done it.Â
JC: & I really don’t mean that in an insincere way, I genuinely hope that with
some research into PCT his excellent work could be modified to link his
findings in association with the PCT model.
RM: It won’t work; it’s impossible to modify one’s work to make it consistent with PCT. When it has been tried it always results in a completely incorrect use of PCT. This is the main problem for PCT; it’s completely inconsistent with all existing perspectives on how behavior works. People trying to fit PCT into an existing theory or fit an existing theory into PCT make a mess of things. Powers, the developer of PCT, always said  that PCT is a completely revolutionary approach to understanding behavior and understanding PCT requires leaving one’s existing biases, theories or “agendas” regarding “how people work” behind. Hardly anyone has taken that seriously so PCT has had a rough time becoming “mainstream” because people always want to find a place for it in their favorite theory or a place for their favorite theory in PCT. The result is that PCT gets lost and bastardizations get popular.Â
RM: And so it goes.
Best regards
Rick
···
On Sun, Oct 11, 2015 at 1:23 AM, John Caines johncaines@gmail.com wrote:
Any comments welcome.
(PS, I don’t have the deep knowledge of PCT to email PG, but I hope maybe
someone with the depth of knowledge in PCT will as Professor PW would
benefit immensely (And so would PCT) if he was aware of the model.
Best regards
JC
PS, I’ve just re-read the above before I’ve hit send (Always a good idea
:-),and see a flaw in the above.
Maybe the author has inadvertantly misinterpreted PW’s statement, or PW
(because of his lack of PCT) has said a statement the wrong way.
He says;
 It’s me who regulates where I want to go.
Correct.(In PCT)
The if-then plan delegates the control to an external stimulus.
Correct, as this is the equivalent of reference signal in PCT? It’s what you
are constantly referencing against external stimuli?
But his final phrase;
so it’s the stimulus, not you, that controls the action.
Incorrect, so so wrong, he’s 2/3rd’s there, but the understanding in the
last statement is clearly wrong (Or am I wrong)
I understand stimulus in PCT Â is perceptual disturbance, and the written
if-then statements as the reference signal (to be compared to), and because
it’s written, visible in the external world, it holds a stronger will, or
shall I say it makes the chances of you succeeding much greater as it helps
one focus on your desired result and surpress / override subconscious
actions that might be detrimental to your desired result
Comments gladly welcome.
JC
(I hope this post is ok for this PCT forum, if anyone feels in anyway this
isn’t worthy or slightly off topic etc for this forum, please comment as
such, as I don’t want to waste anyone’s valuable time)
Best regards
JC
–
Richard S. Marken
www.mindreadings.com
Author of  Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble
