Goal Intentions vs. Implementation Intentions

The concept of goal intentions vs implementation intentions is closely related to the idea of goal focus[ADD LINK].^​1​ As goal intentions are just the idea of what one wants to be accomplished, they are a form of outcome focus. Implementation intentions are likewise comparable to a process focus, as they include specific plans on what is to be done in order to achieve the goal,^​2​ but are elaborated on more in this model.

Implementation intentions, also called if-then plans, are “plans that connect good opportunities to act with cognitive or behavioral responses that are effective in accomplishing one’s goals.”^​2​ They take the format of “If situation X is encountered, then I will perform Y!”^​3​

These can be contrasted with goal intentions, which are “self-instructions to attain certain outcomes or perform particular behaviors and typically take the format of “I intend to reach Z!””^​2​

Despite common assumption, unless a goal is extremely easy, simply having a “strong goal intention […] does not guarantee goal achievement.”^​2​ This is because:

“…forming a goal intention does not prepare people sufficiently for dealing with self‐regulatory problems in initiating, maintaining, disengaging from, or over-extending oneself in goal striving. Forming an implementation intention, on the other hand, spells out the when, where, and how of goal striving in advance.”^​2​

If-then plans, then, require not only the identification of a strongly-desired goal^​4​, but also the linking of “an appropriate behavior […] to a suitable situational context,” creating a “strong mental link between the critical situation […] and the goal-directed response.”^​2​

If-Then Plan Specifications

The words appropriate and suitable quoted above are key, as poorly made if-then plans are no more beneficial than goal intentions alone. To be effective, if-then plans must be:

1. Precise – not requiring “deliberation about appropriate opportunities and responses […] in situ”^​2​
2. Viable – choosing an if- situation that really “will be encountered,” and in which “the specified response [really] can be performed”^​2​
3. Instrumental – the chosen then- response really will further goal achievement^​2​

In everyday life attempts at if-then plans “may fail to form effective implementation intentions due to unfortunate specifications of opportunities and goal‐directed responses.”^​2​ Examples include:

• Choosing an if- situation that is unlikely to occur^​2​
• Choosing a then- behavior that doesn’t actually make much, or any, progress towards the goal (i.e. “taking the stairs instead of the elevator is unlikely, on its own, to achieve the superordinate goal of reducing weight”^​2​)
• Choosing a then- behavior that is is not practical or possible to perform (i.e., “walk up 60 flights of stairs to one’s office”^​2​)

Problems may also occur when if-then plans are not sufficiently specific to initiate an automatic behavioral decision. For instance,

“a plan that specifies ‘‘eat healthily’’ in the then‐component and ‘‘tomorrow’’ in the if‐component has hardly spelled out an unambiguous opportunity to act or a specific goal-directed response to initiate—the person still has to identify a particular behavior to perform in a particular situation to facilitate goal achievement (e.g., order a salad at lunch time tomorrow in my usual restaurant). Having to thus deliberate about when, where, and what to do in situ [that] means that the person is unlikely to garner much benefit from the enhanced activation of critical cues or automation of responding conferred by forming precise if–then plans.”^​2​

How Do They Work?

Well-built if-then plans have been shown to help improve task initiation “no matter whether getting started was an issue of remembering to act, seizing good opportunities, or overcoming initial reluctance.”^​2​ Their power is thought:

“…to enhance the accessibility of the specified critical situation and induce automatic execution of the specified response. The consequence is that people should remember to act, seize good opportunities, overcome initial reluctance, suppress unwanted responses, block detrimental self‐states and adverse contextual influences, and successfully disengage from goals without costs to self‐regulatory capability. Goal striving should be regulated effectively, and goal achievement should thereby be facilitated.”^​2​

When an if-then plan is formed, the critical factors of the if-component become highly activated in the mind and act as cues. These cues can be internal (I.e., “a strong feeling”) or external (I.e., “a particular place, object, person, or point in time,”)^​2​ and their heightened activation makes them more accessible (readily detected, discriminated from other stimuli) and thus automatically attended to when they are encountered.^​3,4​

Such delegation of “the control of goal-directed behavior to specified situational cues”^​2​ “turn effortful goal striving into automated goal striving.”^​3​ This strategic automaticity “minimizes the demands of these tasks on executive functioning and thus improves performance.”^​3​

This accessibility of cues can be hugely important for successful task initiation because “the initiation of goal-directed action often becomes a problem because people let slip opportunities that present themselves only for a short moment.”^​4​ Highly activated cues, however, can be hard to mess, as they are “highly disruptive to focused attention.”^​4​ Studies have shown this to be true even when a person is intensely focused on anything from other tasks, strong emotions, or ruminations.^​4​ This is also true even when the cues are part of background noise^​4​ or even subliminal.^​2​

Automaticity & Cognitive Load

Someone with only goal intentions (or poorly specified if-then plans), will either miss good opportunities to act, or will constantly be drawing heavily on their cognitive processing capacity in order “to actively search for and identify good opportunities to act,”^​2​ and then to decide what, exactly to do when a good opportunity has been identified. That leaves less “brain power” to actually follow through with the task once it’s been decided upon.

Implementation intentions, on the other hand, are so effective because instead of goal striving being effortful, it becomes automatic.^​3​ As the brain remains subconsciously on high-alert for implementation cues, they will commandeer conscious attention as soon as they are encountered, allowing for “the intended goal-directed action[to be] initiated immediately, efficiently, and without conscious intent.”^​4​ And because the specific actions and situations have already been decided upon, there is then less strain on the person’s cognitive load, allowing for more cognitive processing power available for the task itself.^​4​

That increase of available brain power is why if-then plans are particularly effective when the “going gets tough,” and goal-pursuit is difficult.^​3​ This is especially true for people with executive function. Because they already tend to have large cognitive load burdens, utilizing if-then plans have been proven highly effective in helping them achieve their goals.^​3​

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