Research suggests that a perceiver's motivational state implicitly influences the accessibility of goal-relevant knowledge in memory. Further work has recently expanded on these findings by showing that the implicit effects of motivation on the accessibility of knowledge depend on the evaluative characteristics of that knowledge. These findings suggest that active goal pursuit automatically renders goal-facilitating objects approach-friendly by implicitly maximizing positive object-information and minimizing negative object-information. Given that implicit evaluations have been shown to influence behavior and judgment, such approach-friendly evaluations should make the perceiver more likely to approach the goal-facilitating objects and thereby attain the goal. The current proposal seeks to examine the role of implicit evaluations in effective versus dysfunctional self-regulation. To do so, the proposal first examines whether goal-harmful objects are implicitly evaluated in a more repelling fashion (positive object-information inhibited, or negative object-information accessible, or both) during goal pursuit. Second, the proposal tests whether and how approach-friendly and repelling automatic evaluations enable successful self-regulation. Third, the proposal examines different bases of implicit evaluations (whether they emerge from facilitory versus inhibitory processes), and their implications for effective regulation. By examining the role of automatic evaluative processes in self-regulation, the proposal aims to identify some of the low-level, cognitive mechanisms that allow people to more successfully attain their goals and regulate their behavior. ? ?
