Motivated Cognition in Relationships: The Pursuit of Belonging

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When Katy and Todd first met at that coffee shop, something she never understood drew her to him. Her chair was wobbly. Being physically unsettled, and feeling more than a little off-kilter, Katy found Todd’s punctuality especially comforting. For some inexplicable reason, he just seemed like the kind of person she could trust.

In the experiment that inspired this example, David Kille and his colleagues randomly assigned romantically unattached participants to sit at a wobbly or stable table and chair (Kille, Forest, & Wood, 2013). Participants then rated the likelihood of famous couples, such as Barack and Michelle Obama, dissolving their marriage. They also described the traits they personally wanted in a romantic partner. The experience of being physically unstable made the romantic world seem inherently shakier. Those participants sitting at a wobbly table thought the Obamas would be more likely to divorce than those sitting at a stable table. Being physically, and feeling psychologically, shaken also changed what participants wanted in a romantic partner. Those sitting at a wobbly table indicated stronger preferences for a stable and steady partner (e.g., trustworthy, reliable, not adventurous) than those sitting at a stable table.

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We raise the possibility that physically shaking could draw Katy’s attention to Todd’s punctuality to highlight our take on how safety and value goals infuse relationships. Namely, thinking is for doing. Therefore, the physicality of doing has to be bound up in the mentality of thinking to turn Katy’s goal to avoid being hurt by Todd into the desired behavioral reality (Bargh, Schwader, Hailey, Dyer, & Boothby, 2012; Baumeister & Bargh, 2014). In fact, embodied cognition theorists assume that mental representations of the world incorporate physical experiences with the world to facilitate goal-directed action (Bargh et al., 2012; Barsalou, 2008; Meier, Moeller, Riemer-Peltz, & Robinson, 2012; Rueschemeyer, Lindemann, van Elk, & Bekkering, 2009). For instance, our mental representations of inanimate and animate objects, such as chocolates, flights of stairs, caregivers, and potential enemies, include our physical or bodily experience of such objects – as mouth-watering, steep, warm, or fearsome. When we imagine or perceive such objects, such bodily sensations are also activated and we automatically know how to behave. We indulge, climb, approach, or flee, as appropriate to the object, the next time it is encountered. To return to Katy, physically shaking cued her mental representations of harm and risk as well as a potential means to their alleviation – approaching a reliable other. By drawing her attention to Todd’s punctuality, being physically shaken allowed her to restore her world to a psychologically, if not physically, more stable one.

This chapter builds on the “thinking is for doing” principle to make the first part of our case for safety and value goals occupying the top positions on our motivational short-list. In this chapter, we borrow the philosophy of embodied cognition theorists and look for the imprint of safety and value pursuits on relatively low-level or primitive perceptual, cognitive, and motivational processes. In the first section, we explain how safety and value goal pursuits serve the fundamental need to belong. Next, we argue that people are biologically and psychologically prepared to pursue safety and value goals as a means to belongingness. We argue these two goal pursuits can essentially co-opt more basic biological and psychological systems for (1) staying safe from physical harm and (2) perceiving value and purpose in action. We conclude the chapter by revealing the cognitive overlap between the general goals for staying safe from harm and perceiving value in action and motivated cognitive processes in relationships. Through varied empirical examples, we highlight the pervasive and powerful ways in which relationship perceptions affect physical sensations of the world as safe and meaningful and physical sensations of the world as safe and meaningful affect relationship perceptions.

What Thinking Needs to Do: The Belongingness Imperative

Baumeister and Leary (1995) define the need to belong as a fundamental biological and psychological motivation to establish temporally persistent and consistently responsive relationships with other people. But, even though romantic relationships are uniquely positioned to satisfy the need to belong in adulthood (see Chapter 1), the reality of interdependent life makes it difficult for partners to be persistently and consistently responsive to one another’s needs.

Consider Katy’s desire to ask Todd to take a weekend away to meet her parents. For Todd to be responsive, he first has to know that she wants him to take this leap forward in their relationship. However, Todd is not a mind reader; he does not have direct access to the contents of Katy’s thoughts. She needs to tell him what she is thinking, so Katy’s reticence could get in the way of his being responsive. Her tendency to assume the vague hints that she had been dropping were enough to alert Todd to her needs could also get in the way of his being responsive. In fact, people all too often assume hints and insinuations have effectively communicated their needs when their partner remains completely in the dark (Vorauer, Cameron, Holmes, & Pearce, 2003).

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Even when Todd knows what Katy wants, incompatible preferences could get in the way of him being responsive to her needs (Kelley, 1979). As it happens, Todd is a busy law student and he had planned to spend the weekend camped out at the library preparing for his impending bar exams. All couples experience situations where they want different things; these incompatibilities make it difficult to be responsive (Kelley, 1979; Murray & Holmes, 2011). The nature of the incompatibilities partners face, and thus, the difficulties they are likely to face in being responsive, depend on the specifics of the situation they encounter (Murray & Holmes, 2009, 2011).

Partners generally interact across three broad classes of situations. They involve: (1) the management of daily life tasks; (2) the negotiation of similarities and differences in personality; and (3) the coordination of goals for the relationship (Kelley, 1979). The types of incompatibilities that arise in these domains differ from one stage of a relationship to the next and from one couple to the next. For instance, Katy and Todd just started dating so they have not had the dubious pleasure of allocating household chores. This means that Katy’s half-hearted cleaning habits have not yet had the chance to rub Todd the wrong way. Katy’s low self-esteem has come on to Todd’s radar though. She over-interprets his slightest silences and Todd finds himself apologizing more than he wants, which has been difficult given his proud and impatient nature. Because they live together, Skyler and Walt no longer have the luxury of ignoring her more exacting standards for household cleanliness. They started having especially heated debates about who should take out the trash, vacuum, and shop for groceries once they had their son.

Katy and Todd and Skyler and Walt are like most couples. They have to find ways to coordinate incompatible interests, desires, and preferences so they can care for and support one another (Reis, Clark, & Holmes, 2004). Although this coordination process is crucial for responsiveness, it is not likely to be easy for anyone. Lykken and Tellegen (1993) made this point in a longitudinal study of twins and their spouses. They reasoned that the personalities of real couples should be more similar than the personalities of randomly paired couples if partners chose one another on the basis of personality fit. But that’s not what they found. Real couples were no more similar in personality than random couples. This means that virtually all partners will encounter situations where they have at least some incompatible preferences, interests, and goals.

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Incompatibilities make it difficult for partners to be responsive because of the “twin temptations of self-interest” (Murray & Holmes, 2011). Katy disclosing her desire for Todd to meet her parents is risky. Asking leaves her vulnerable to his rejection, especially if she knows that he already has plans to study. Todd’s temptation to meet his own needs and study thus gives Katy ample reason to succumb to her temptation to self-protect and keep her weekend desires to herself. For Katy and Todd’s interactions to be mutually responsive, they each need to set aside self-interested concerns. Katy needs to set aside her temptation to self-protect and express her desires for Todd to meet her parents to him. In turn, Todd needs to set aside his temptation to be selfish and study and instead go home with Katy on the weekend to meet her parents.

We short-listed safety and value goals because these goal pursuits together manage these “twin temptations of self-interest” and make it easier for partners to be responsive to one another’s needs. The pursuit of safety gives Katy the sense of assurance she needs to risk depending on Todd to meet her needs, which gives him behavioral opportunities to prove his caring. The pursuit of value gives Todd the sense of conviction in his commitment needed to do what is best for Katy and the relationship when she risks depending on him (Holmes & Rempel, 1989; Murray & Holmes, 2009; Murray, Holmes, & Collins, 2006; Murray, Holmes, & Griffin, 2000). Similarly, the pursuit of safety gives Todd the sense of assurance he needs to risk depending on Katy and the pursuit of value allows Katy to find enough to value in Todd to care for his needs when he depends on her (Rusbult, Drigotas, Arriaga, Witcher, & Cox, 1997).

Closing in on Belongingness: Marking Safety and Value Goal Progress

As these examples illustrate, relationship interactions are more likely to be responsive when partners are making sufficient progress in their pursuits of both safety and value. Indeed, we contend that safety and value goal pursuits are the sine qua non for satisfying the need to belong within romantic relationships. Unless Katy and Todd both feel safe and value one another enough, they are going to have inordinate difficulty behaving responsively and finding a sense of belonging in their relationship. This brings us to the logical question: How exactly do people mark progress toward these goals?

Like other goals, safety and value goals are cognitive representations of desired end-states (Fishbach & Ferguson, 2007). Katy wants to be safe; she wants to know that Todd loves and is not going to hurt her. She also wants to perceive value in action; she wants to believe that Todd really is worth her care and love (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2003; Murray & Holmes, 2009). Because thinking is for doing (Bargh et al., 2012), we venture a new claim: Safety and value goals are represented as embodied end-states. This means that progress in the pursuit of safety and value goals is marked by more than mentally accessible beliefs. Physical sensations of taste, touch, smell, sight, and sound and even imperceptible bodily movements also mark progress toward or away from these goals.

The way in which attitudes function to guide behavior illustrates embodied cognitive processes in action. Attitudes are cognitive representations that capture evaluative associations to given objects, places, and people (Fazio, 1986). They answer the question: Is this particular (object, place, or person) something that is good and to be approached or bad and to be avoided (Olson & Fazio, 2008)? Katy’s positive automatic attitude toward chocolate captures her desire to consume this confection. Such an attitude can more effectively satiate her cravings if its activation compels her arm and then her hand to inch toward the chocolates in front of her. Growing evidence suggests that attitudes have just this function. Attitudes, once activated, elicit motor movements capable of satiating the desire to approach (or avoid) the object captured by the attitude (Fazio, 2007; Fazio, Ledbetter, & Towles-Schwen, 2000; Towles-Schwen & Fazio, 2006).

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For instance, priming positively evaluated inanimate objects automatically elicits arm movements associated with moving coveted objects closer; priming negatively evaluated objects automatically elicits arm movements associated with pushing distained objects away (Chen & Bargh, 1999). For people with positive automatic attitudes toward the elderly, priming thoughts of being old automatically slows their walking speed to a leisurely pace commensurate with going for a stroll with a beloved grandmother. However, for those with more negative automatic attitudes toward the elderly, priming thoughts of being old accelerates their walking speed to a pace commensurate with beating a quick escape from a not-so-beloved grandmother (Cesario, Plaks, & Higgins, 2006). Similarly, imagining being approached by a close and desired friend elicits postural shifts needed to take a step forward, whereas imagining being approached by an undesired stranger activates postural shifts needed to take step back. Importantly, such anticipatory shifts in posture only occur when the possibility of interaction feels “real” to participants because they are imagining the event through their own eyes, just as they would experience it in real life (Miles, Christian, Masilamani, Volpi, & Macrae, 2014).

The Embodiment of Safety and Value

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Traditionally, relationship scholars mark representations of safety and value through conscious beliefs. The state of Katy’s trust in Todd’s caring – from tenuous to confident – captures her progress toward her goal of feeling safe (Holmes & Rempel, 1989; Murray & Holmes, 2009). The state of Katy’s commitment to Todd – from weak to strong – captures her progress toward her goal of perceiving meaning and value in Todd (Brickman, 1987; Rusbult & Van Lange, 2003). But, from an embodied perspective, Katy’s representation of safety also includes the physical sensation of warmth or the visual perception of proximity. The physical warmth of preparing Todd’s coffee thus could move Katy toward her goal of feeling safe (Williams & Bargh, 2008a) and the visual perception of distance could move her away (Williams & Bargh, 2008b). Todd’s representation of value also includes his visual perception of attraction cues, his experience of scent, and the physical impetus to approach and move forward that comes from deciding how to implement difficult decisions. The allure of Katy’s red top, charting his career goals, or bounding steps up his stairs thus could move Todd closer to his goal of seeing value and meaning in Katy.

The hypothesis that safety and value goals are embodied end-states invites myriad opportunities for these goals to infuse attention, inference, and behavior in relationships. For instance, Katy’s physical experience of Todd’s warm touch might activate automatic thoughts of his dependability even if her conscious thoughts urge caution. As we will see in subsequent chapters, such flexibility in goal pursuit has great functional utility in relationships. Safety and value goals are not static end-states that, once satiated, never need to be pursued again. In fact, we would hazard a guess that safety and value goals are rarely, if ever, fully satiated in relationships. Romantic goal pursuit is very much like weight control in this sense. The desire to remain at a perfect weight is constantly thwarted by the readings on the scale going above and below a desired end-state.

Without question, being safe from harm and perceiving sufficient value in a partner gets easier for some to approximate than others. We will see evidence on this point in Chapters 3 and 4. Nevertheless, even people who are highly trusting and committed encounter situations in their relationships that make them feel vulnerable and cause them to question their partner’s value. Sylvia’s unwillingness to even try any of the adventurous activities Brian relishes is one such sore spot for him (Murray & Holmes, 2011). Transitioning from one life stage of a relationship to the next can also thwart safety and value goal pursuits in unexpected ways (Kelley, 1979). Adjusting to the role of being parents created new conflict situations for Skyler and Walt that they never had to negotiate before (Doss, Rhoades, Stanley, & Markman, 2009). We view safety and value as ongoing goal pursuits because the complex adaptive challenges partners face in being consistently and mutually responsive to one another’s needs never go away.

Preparedness for Safety and Value

If safety and value are goals that are elemental to the pursuit of belongingness, people should be biologically and psychologically prepared to satisfy them. Our review of the literature reveals telltale signs of such preparation. Indeed, humans actually carve the social world up perceptually in ways that serve basic goals for safety and value. For instance, infants develop a primitive sense of whether they are likely to receive care (i.e., safety) and whether others are willing to provide care (i.e., value) through early interactions with a primary caregiver (Bowlby, 1969; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2003). Across cultures, adults first judge others (individuals and groups) along the dimension of warmth, and then, on the dimension of competence (Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2006). In a risky social world, judging warmth keeps people safe from harm by marking others likely to have more or less positive intentions toward the self. Judging competence keeps people pursuing meaningful actions by marking others capable of carrying out such positive intentions. To quote Fiske and colleagues: “Like all perception, social perception reflects evolutionary pressures . . . Social animals must determine, immediately, whether the ‘other’ is friend or foe (i.e., intends good or ill) and, then, whether the ‘other’ has the ability to act on those intentions” (p. 78). In other words, in navigating the social world, people must discern (1) who is safe to approach, and then, discern (2) whether those who are safe to approach are actually worth making a concerted effort to befriend.

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Repurposing What’s There

Neuroscientists believe that the human brain evolved so as not to reinvent the wheel. Rather than creating new biological and psychological systems to solve newly encountered adaptive problems from scratch, the brain instead repurposed what was already in place. Essentially, the brain evolved such that “modern human brain functions are built upon older, more primitive brain functions” (MacLean, 1990; Panskepp, 1998, as cited in Tritt, Inzlicht, & Harmon-Jones, 2012, p. 721). Conceivably, the capacity to co-opt more basic biological and psychological systems for (1) protecting against physical harm and (2) sustaining steadfast and purposeful action would make navigating an increasingly complex social world more manageable. As we will soon see, these general physical and psychological needs do seem to be represented as embodied goals. Further, the embodiment of these general goals likely favored safety and value goal pursuits as the means for satiating the belongingness imperative in romantic relationships.

So let’s take a developmental step back. Attachment and evolutionary theorists contend that human minds and bodies developed in response to the adaptive problems posed by the necessity to survive and reproduce (Beckes & Coan, 2011; Kenrick, Neuberg, & White, 2013; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2003). For infants, the primary adaptive problem is to stay warm, comforted, and fed. For children and adolescents, it is to explore independently, gather kind and loyal friends and allies, and later find desirable mates. For adults, it is to retain a mate long enough to ensure the survival of offspring (Hazan & Diamond, 2000; Kenrick et al., 2013). As these examples illustrate, the adaptive problems people face change from one stage of life to the next. However, the solutions to these problems remain invariant. Whether the problem is an infant’s need to escape the cold, an adolescent’s need to discern friends from foes, or an adult’s need to protect against disease, survival and reproduction require a mechanism for protecting against physical harm. Similarly, whether it is a child soliciting a caregiver’s attention, an adolescent seeking a desirable mate, or an adult nurturing a child or partner, survival and reproduction require a mechanism for sustaining value and purpose in action.

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The reason why human development would favor an integrated brain–body system for protecting against physical harm is obvious. Life is fragile and the world is fraught with dangers, such as brutal cold, biting hunger, contagious diseases, and fearsome foes that threaten physical survival. Those who avoid such threats are more likely to survive to reproduce than those who do not (Kenrick et al., 2013). The reason why human development would favor an integrated brain–body system for sustaining resolved, steadfast, and purposeful action may be less immediately obvious, but it is no less important. In colloquial terms, indecision kills. In psychological terms, effective behavior requires a certain and unconflicted course of action (Harmon-Jones, Amodio, & Harmon-Jones, 2009; Smith & Semin, 2007; Tritt et al., 2012). Those who can decisively choose to fight or flee, love or hate, and advance or retreat are more likely to survive to reproduce than those who remain in a state of uncertain behavioral paralysis (Tritt et al., 2012). For instance, people who see their own actions as full of clear purpose and meaning are more likely to attract friends and suitors than those who are less certain of the meaning and purpose underlying their actions (Stillman, Lambert, Fincham, & Baumeister, 2011). Even more striking, adults who see their lives as full of meaning and purpose are less likely to die over a 14-year period (Hill & Turiano, 2014). We now turn to the evidence that the general goals to (1) protect against harm and (2) sustain a steadfast sense of value and purpose in action are in fact embodied goals.

The Embodiment of Self-Protection

Because there is no shortage of physical dangers in the world, cognitively representing means for gauging such potential harms makes good evolutionary sense (Kenrick et al., 2013). Research from diverse theoretical perspectives suggests that protecting against harm is represented as an embodied goal. In fact, the goal to be safe from harm appears to be embodied through the biological immune system (Miller & Maner, 2011a, 2012). For instance, recently experiencing an illness activates the biological immune system and increases behavioral efforts to avoid potential sources of harm. People who have recently been ill are quicker to notice and push away potentially dangerous (i.e., disfigured) than normal faces (Miller & Maner, 2011a). The specific experiences of mind and body that cue progress toward (or away) from the goal to be safe and protected from harm vary depending on the situation. In familiar contexts, such as the relationship between a parent and child, the experience of physical warmth or closeness signals safety goal progress. In unfamiliar or potentially threatening contexts, such as an encounter with an out-group member or someone who is ill or diseased, the physical experience of distance and separation instead signal safety goal progress.

The Physicality of Warmth vs. Coldness

Imagining the world through the (blurry) eyes of an infant reveals one basic way in which progress toward the goal of being safe from harm is embodied. Humans are nearly helpless at birth. Survival depends on maintaining proximity to a caregiver, usually a mother, for nourishment, warmth, and protection from physical harm or predators (Hazan & Diamond, 2000; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2003). In his seminal treatise, Bowlby (1969) posited a bio-behavioral system for maintaining such proximity – the attachment system. He reasoned that infants come into the world possessing innate behavioral systems for maintaining physical proximity to a caregiver. They include a herculean capacity to grasp an extended finger, a rooting response to suck in response to a breast (or hand) brushing against the cheek, and a double-decibel cry. In most circumstances, such behaviors are highly effective in eliciting a caregiver’s physical proximity, and all the good that comes with it, such as warmth, nourishment, and an emotional sense of safety or felt security (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2003).

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Through early experiences with a responsive caregiver, physical warmth comes to signal the proximity of safe and caring others (Bowlby, 1969; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2003). From an embodied goal perspective, such developmental experiences should result in warmth becoming part of the cognitive representation of the goal to be protected against harm (Fay & Maner, 2012; Ijzerman & Semin, 2009; Williams & Bargh, 2008a). If safety is embodied in this manner, coming into contact with something that is warm to the touch should signal progress toward this goal. Consequently, the world should appear safer and more inviting when people experience the physical sensation of warmth. The empirical evidence suggests that is the case. People perceive a target person to be interpersonally warmer after they have just held a cup of hot coffee than a cup of iced coffee. They are also more likely to reach out to a friend (by giving a gift they could have kept for themselves) after they just held a warm than a cold therapeutic pack (Williams & Bargh, 2008a). Similarly, people sitting on a heated pad report greater desire to get close to others than people sitting on an unheated pad (Fay & Maner, 2012). Conversely, people chilled from drinking an ice-cold glass of water feel less connected to others than people warmed by a heated glass of water (Chen, Poon, & DeWall, 2015).

Of course, physical warmth of touch is not the only cue that signals the proximity of safe and caring others. The physical sight and sound of such others should also signal progress in the pursuit of safety. It does. Having friends within sight and earshot makes the social world seem safer and less threatening. For instance, men in the company of friends perceive a potential foe as less physically intimidating. Fessler and Holbrook (2013) approached men walking with their friends. The participant then rated the height and muscularity of the headshot photograph of a convicted terrorist. They did so within sight and earshot of their friends (i.e., the safety condition) or isolated from their friends. Men who could neither see nor hear their friends perceived the terrorist to be significantly taller, more muscular, and more physically intimidating than men who could see and hear their friends. The simple presence of friends effectively shrank this foe down to size.

The Physicality of Distance

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The social world that greets an infant is narrower and more familiar than the social worlds that children, adolescents, and adults inhabit. In these ambiguous social worlds, people encounter those who might befriend and those who might betray them and survival depends on the capacity to detect the difference (Kenrick et al., 2013). Therefore, just as the physical warmth (vs. coldness) cues progress toward the goal to be protected against harm in familiar social circumstances, the perception of physical distance may cue progress in less familiar ones.

The idea is an intuitive one. Physically close threats pose a greater risk to survival than physically distant threats. A bear that is two feet away poses an imminent safety hazard, but one that is 200 feet away does not. Because people feel safer when physically removed from a threat, Williams and Bargh (2008b) reasoned that priming physical distance would be enough to make threats appear innocuous. In one study, they first had participants plot near or far points on a Cartesian plane. They then read a story about someone who was horribly disfigured, and suicidal, in the aftermath of a car accident. Participants primed with distance (by plotting far points on the Cartesian plane) reported significantly less negative affect after reading the story than participants primed with closeness (by plotting near points). In a further study, participants primed with distance (by plotting far points) perceived fatty foods to possess fewer (dangerous) calories than participants primed with closeness (Williams & Bargh, 2008b).

The equation of distance with progress toward self-protection goals is so firmly engrained in the mind and body that activating the goal to be safe elicits the psychological perception of social distance and separation (Maner et al., 2005). People effectively keep themselves safe by perceiving the social world in a way that justifies fear and gives them reason to avoid unfamiliar and potentially threatening others. For instance, Maner and his colleagues (2005) primed the goal to self-protect against harm through fear. They exposed White participants to a clip from the film Silence of the Lambs, which featured a psychopath stalking a woman through a basement. Control participants watched a neutral film. Participants then rated the emotions they perceived in the neutral facial expressions of potentially threatening (Black men) and non-threatening targets (Black women and White men and women). Priming the goal to self-protect resulted in these White participants perceiving anger in the faces of Black men. Fearful participants restored safety to their social worlds by perceiving reason to avoid the very targets (given cultural stereotypes) that might pose a threat to them (Maner et al., 2005). Similarly, priming self-protection goals (through fear) also makes people more likely to notice and later remember the distinguishing features of out-group members (Becker et al., 2010).

The Physicality of Pain

For humans, like other social animals, there is perhaps no greater physical danger than exclusion by others. Social isolates suffer greater illness and live shorter lives than people who are socially included (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Because the companionship of others signals progress toward safety goals (Kenrick et al., 2013; Maner, DeWall, Baumeister, & Schaller, 2007), social rejection and exclusion should hurt. It does. Even logically inconsequential rejections – such as being excluded from a ball-tossing game by computer-generated players – cause both physical (Eisenberger, 2012) and psychological pain (Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995).

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As it turns out, the metaphor of a broken heart is an enormously apt one. MacDonald and Leary (2005) argued that the evolution of social pain co-opted the biological system already in place to regulate physical pain (Panksepp, 1998). Indeed, the experience of interpersonal rejection activates the exact same neural regions (i.e., the dorsal anterior cingulated cortex and the anterior insula) implicated in physical pain (Eisenberger, 2012). Because being rejected is embodied as physical pain, taking a daily pain reliever such as Tylenol actually takes away the pain of the daily social hurts. When people are so medicated, interpersonal slights that would normally hurt, such as a stranger’s rebuff or a friend’s criticism, simply lose any sting (DeWall et al., 2010).

There is a straightforward reason why losing the companionship of others is represented as an embodied threat to safety. Pain is adaptive. Pain draws attention to potential threats (e.g., “Ouch, this stove is hot!”) and motivates pain-alleviating behavior (e.g., pulling a hand away from a hot stove). Social pain is also adaptive. Being hurt by rejection draws attention to potential threats to safety (e.g., “Ouch, this person is nasty”) and motivates safety-restoring behaviors, such as forging new social bonds (Maner et al., 2007) or avoiding damaged ones (Twenge, Baumeister, Tice, & Stucke, 2001).

The Embodiment of Purposeful Action

Because uncertainty inhibits action, cognitively representing a behavioral means for effecting a resolved and steadfast sense of value and purpose in action also makes evolutionary sense. As we saw in the last chapter, the unconscious is usually in the behavioral driver seat (Baumeister & Bargh, 2014). Subtle features of the situation activate unconscious goals, not all of which have consistent implications for behavior (Harmon-Jones et al., 2009). For people to pursue a steadfast, purposeful course of action in the face of competing action tendencies, they need to (1) monitor the unexpected and (2) accommodate to it (Jonas et al., 2014). Think of what it takes to maintain a commitment to diet in the face of a sea of opportunities to eat. People need to be able to monitor when they are tempted and quickly enact a contingency plan to keep them on the straight and narrow (Gollwitzer, 1990). Diverse theoretical perspectives suggest that maintaining a resolved sense of value and purpose in action is represented as an embodied goal (Harmon-Jones et al., 2009; Proulx et al., Smith & Semin, 2004; Tritt et al., 2012). The goal to pursue purposeful action appears to be embodied through biological systems for monitoring response conflicts and motivating approach behavior (Harmon-Jones et al., 2009).

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Let’s back up a bit. Before social psychologists had neuropsychological and psychophysiological methods at their disposal, they long had argued that behavioral action requires an unequivocal state of mind (Brickman, 1987; Festinger, 1957; Jones & Gerard, 1967). To understand why certainty or a clear sense of purpose is a requisite for effective action, just consider the phrase, “I don’t know what to do.” Its invocation conjures up the uncomfortable image of someone, uncertain and agitated, perhaps teetering on a precipice, not sure whether to take a step forward or a step back.

Dissonance theorists were among the first to argue that maintaining clarity and purpose in action is represented as an embodied goal (Festinger, 1957). Rather than using this particular term, they instead argued that people experience an aversive state of physiological arousal (namely, dissonance) when their behavior does not follow from their thoughts. The sole purpose of this state of aversive physiological arousal is to make the direction behavior is taking feel “right” again by motivating people to reduce the inconsistency between their thoughts and behavior (Zanna & Cooper, 1974).

Consider someone making a difficult choice between two romantic partners, who each have significant pluses and minuses (Festinger, 1957). Choosing Partner A over Partner B creates dissonance arousal because it invites uncertainty. Partner A’s negative qualities and Partner B’s positive qualities provide reason to doubt the choice of Partner A – putting one’s happy and efficacious pursuit of a relationship with Partner A in jeopardy. People resolve the dissonance that results from difficult choices by justifying the choice made. They make pursuing Partner A feel “right” by minimizing A’s negative qualities and Partner B’s positive qualities. In doing so, they imbue purpose to the decision to be with Partner A and make a chosen pursuit behaviorally unconflicted. Research on decision making under uncertainty suggests that the need to see one’s choices as meaningful might even create a belief in fate. Tang and his colleagues reasoned that difficult choices, such as voting for a candidate in a contentious presidential race, evoke uncertainty. But, believing that fate was guiding one’s vote could restore a sense of meaning in one’s choice. Consistent with this logic, people who were faced with a difficult choice between two similar candidates believed fate would guide their hands (and votes) to the right choice (Tang, Shepherd, & Kay, 2014).

The Physicality of Uncertainty

The modern instantiation of these ideas is captured in the action-based model of dissonance. Its underlying premise is that “dissonance between cognitions evokes a negative affective state because it has the potential to interfere with effective and unconflicted action” (Harmon-Jones et al., 2009, p. 128). In this instantiation, people experience dissonance when unexpected or inconsistent thoughts interfere with goal-directed behavior. For instance, the inconsistent or unexpected thought, “I am eating chocolate cake,” interferes with the goal-directed behavior to diet. To continue to see dieting as a meaningful goal pursuit in the face of chocolate cake consumption, the inconsistent or unexpected needs to be made expected. This might involve changing perceptions of the calorie content of the cake (e.g., “It was low-fat”) or the significance of the lapse (e.g., “Everyone breaks diets now and again”).

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Dissonance is thought to provide the energy or impetus for effective and goal-driven behavior by transforming the unexpected into the expected. The experience of dissonance has this effect because of the way in which effective action or goal-directed behavior is embodied in the brain (Harmon-Jones et al., 2009; Harmon-Jones, Harmon-Jones, Serra, & Gable, 2014). The area of the brain responsible for monitoring response conflicts (i.e., the anterior cingulate cortex) intersects with the area of the brain responsible for motivating approach-oriented behavior (i.e., the left prefrontal cortex). Through this neural circuitry, the detection of something inconsistent or unexpected (i.e., “What am I doing eating this cake?”) can provide the compensatory approach-oriented motivational state needed to keep behavior moving forward (e.g., “This cake just isn’t so bad for me”). In a study testing this hypothesis, participants wrote a counter-attitudinal essay under either high-choice (i.e., high dissonance) or low-choice (i.e., low dissonance) conditions while their EEG activity was recorded (Harmon-Jones, Gerdjikov, & Harmon-Jones, 2008). Participants who behaved unexpectedly (i.e., volunteered to write an essay they did not believe) evidenced greater left prefrontal activation (indicating an approach-motivated state) and they also changed their attitudes to match their behavior (making their behavior meaningful again).

The neural imprint of dissonance in the brain areas generally related to approach motivation supports the evolutionary basis of the goal for purposeful action. So does evidence from studies of non-human primates and young children. Capuchin monkeys and four-year-old children both justify difficult choices by favoring hard-chosen stickers or M&M candies over easily forgone ones (Egan, Santos, & Bloom, 2007). Dissonance is also evident across cultures, although its behavioral manifestation is culturally specific. People from Western cultures justify choices that threaten a sense of “rightness” or purpose in the choices they make for themselves. People from Eastern cultures instead justify the choices that threaten a sense of “rightness” or purpose in choices they make for others (Hoshino-Browne et al., 2005).

The Physicality of Approach

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Because the goal for purposeful action is embodied in approach motivation, activating approach intentions (through physical movement) should engender more unequivocal and purposeful behavior. The existing evidence on this point is suggestive. When people want something or want to do something, they usually need to behave in some way that moves them physically closer to their goals. For instance, bringing a delectable piece of chocolate to the lips involves flexing one’s upper-arm muscles. So does picking up a small child. Through repeated experiencing picking up what we want or walking toward what we want, such bodily approach movements should be part of the embodied representation of what it means to be engaged in purposeful and valued behavior. Consequently, engaging in the bodily approach movement should make the target of the movement more desirable as a pursuit.

Making the physical arm movements associated with approach (i.e., upper-arm flexion) increases liking for neutral-attitude objects (Cacioppo et al., 1993). Training people to approach what they would otherwise avoid even creates new incipient behavioral commitments. Math-apprehensive women trained to approach math (by pulling a joystick toward them whenever a math-related symbol appears) reported greater identification with math and attempted to solve more math problems than women trained to avoid math (Kawakami, Steele, Cifa, Phills, & Dovidio, 2008). People trained to approach members of a negatively stereotyped group (by pulling a joystick toward them in response to the subliminal presentation of Black faces) engaged in more positive non-verbal behavior toward a Black confederate (Kawakami, Phills, Steele, & Dovidio, 2007). The real-world act of physically approaching a speed date by moving from one table to the next (vs. sitting at the same table) even heightens romantic desire and increases willingness to accept an invitation for a date (Finkel & Eastwick, 2008)!

The Psychology of the Expected

The idea that sustaining steadfast and purposeful action is an embodied goal is also evident in uncertainty reduction models (Heine, Proulx, & Vohs, 2006; Jonas et al., 2014). Like the action-based dissonance model, these models assume that uncertainty invites behavioral paralysis. Consequently, experiencing the unexpected provokes anxiety and motivates compensatory behavior that reduces anxiety by restoring meaning and purpose to action. What is so fascinating about the uncertainty models is how trivial a violation of expectancy it takes to elicit compensatory processes. Simply being exposed to incongruent word pairings (like “quickly–blueberry”) is sufficient. In such an experiment, Randles and his colleagues subliminally exposed participants in the expectancy-violation condition to incongruent word pairings and participants in the control condition to congruent word pairings. They then asked their participants to set the bond for a hypothetical prostitute. Because prostitutes violate social convention, setting a higher bond provides a means of restoring the sense that the world is good and right (because bad behaviors are appropriately punished). Participants exposed to incongruent word pairings actually set a higher bond for the prostitute than control participants (Randles, Proulx, & Heine, 2011).

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Embodied Safety and Value Goals in Action

The previously reviewed evidence suggests people are biologically and psychologically prepared to satisfy the belongingness imperative. Therefore, the systems already in place for pursuing the general goals to (1) protect against harm and (2) sustain unequivocal action could be co-opted to pursue the relational goals to (1) protect against being let down and hurt by close partners and (2) see value and meaning in caring for close partners. If such co-option has occurred, the representations regulating the pursuit of general and relational goals for safety and value should be cognitively overlapping. This means that activating the general goal for safety or value should bias perceptions of specific actual or potential relationship partners in ways that satisfy the more general goals. Conversely, activating the specific relational goals for safety or value should also bias more general perceptions of the self and the physical world in ways that satisfy these relational goals. The evidence reviewed next provides promising evidence that general and relational pursuits of safety and value are indeed cognitively overlapping.

The Embodied Pursuit of Safety

If safety functions as an embodied goal, the threat of physical harm should sensitize people to safety-restoring features of the social world. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche Dubois memorably opined, “I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.” Core to this confession is the idea that the trustworthiness and good will of others can protect one from harm. If people do indeed rely on the “kindness of strangers” (as well as friends) to satisfy the basic goal to be safe, posing a threat to safety should heighten sensitivity to social cues that reveal the kindness (or duplicity) of strangers.

Young, Slepian, and Sacco (2015) made this point in two experiments we wish we had designed. In each study, they primed the goal to be safe from physical harm by subjecting participants to a frightening clip from the Silence of the Lambs. Control participants viewed a neutral film clip. Study 1 participants then viewed digital images of strangers, tasked with the goal of discriminating trustworthy faces from those who could not be trusted. Study 2 participants also viewed the faces of strangers, but they discriminated genuine (i.e., Duchenne) from forced smiles. Activating the goal to self-protect effectively armed people with the perceptual sensitivity to make their social worlds physically safer. Experimental participants better discriminated trustworthy from untrustworthy faces and genuine from faked smiles than controls. The goal to be safe from physical harm essentially made features of the social world that diagnosed the potential for such harm more visible, restoring safety (Young et al., 2015).

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Although others in the social world can pose direct threats of bodily harm, they can also threaten safety in more indirect ways. As we discussed earlier, the proximity and companionship of others powerfully signal safety (Leary & Baumeister, 2000). Because safety depends on the proximity of caring others, even the potential of being excluded or rejected by another person threatens progress in the pursuit of this goal. Because rejection is such a powerful threat to safety, researchers can use the threat of rejection to reveal the embodied means through which safety is pursued. As we will see next, the experience of interpersonal rejection changes perceptions of the physical and social world in ways that best afford renewed progress in the pursuit of safety (DeWall, Maner, & Rouby, 2009; Oishi, Schiller, & Gross, 2012; Pitts, Wilson, & Hugenberg, 2014).

In a fascinating set of experiments, Oishi and colleagues (2012) activated the relational goal to be safe from harm. They created a palpable rejection experience by leading experimental participants to feel misunderstood by someone they had just met. To do this, they first had participants select two personality characteristics that described them most well and two personality characteristics that described them least well (from a list of 10). Then participants had a conversation with a confederate who either understood them (because the confederate described them as they described themselves) or misunderstood them (because the confederate described them opposite to the way they described themselves). They then assessed how safe and inviting participants perceived the world to be. They asked participants to submerge their hand in an icy bucket of water (to measure pain tolerance) and to estimate the walking distance between specific geographical locations and the steepness of a hill. Participants who felt misunderstood by their interaction partner perceived a less physically safe and inviting world. They perceived the icy water to be more painful, the distance to be longer, and the hill to be steeper. Magnifying the level of threat in the physical world might seem like a paradoxical means of satisfying safety goals, but it is actually quite functional. Aspects of the physical world that seem less safe and inviting, like painful ice buckets and arduous travails, are more likely to be avoided. Thus, being more likely to see the physical world as intimidating furthers the pursuit of safety goals because it motivates perceivers to avoid physically risky or dangerous situations that could pose an even greater threat to physical safety (Pietrzak, Downey, & Ayduk, 2005).

Not everything should seem foreboding when safety goals are thwarted. Features of the social world that could afford a sense of safety should seem more physically and psychologically inviting when the goal to be safe from being hurt is activated.

First, rejection should make accepting others appear physically closer in space if physical proximity is part of the embodied representation of safety. Pitts and colleagues (2014) primed interpersonal rejection by asking experimental participants to spend five minutes writing about a time when they had been rejected or excluded by someone. Control participants wrote about what they had done when they first got up in the morning. Participants were then asked to toss a beanbag to a confederate (to provide a surreptitious measure of how close participants perceived the confederate to be). Participants primed with rejection perceived the confederate to be physically closer to them; their beanbag tosses typically fell several inches short of reaching the confederate! In a second study, they created a live rejection experiencing by having a confederate refuse to work with the participant. Participants then estimated the physical distance between them and a real-live new interaction partner or a cardboard cutout of the same interaction partner. Rejected participants perceived the actual person to be physically closer to them, but not the cardboard cutout. In fact, people who have just been rejected not only perceive amiable and potentially accepting others to be physically closer; they also intend to work harder to win over physically distant others (Knowles, Green, & Weidel, 2014). Activating the goal to protect against hurt thus makes actual social connections that could restore safety seem physically closer in space and more reachable.

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Second, the comfort of physical touch should also make others seem more socially inviting if physical warmth is part of the embodied representation of safety. Indeed, being physically touched by a romantic partner makes psychologically stressful situations feel appreciably safer (Robinson, Hoplock, & Cameron, 2015). Even touching a teddy bear – an inanimate object physically associated with warmth and closeness – is enough to restore a sense of safety and embolden social connection. When people have been excluded, touching a teddy bear makes the world feel interpersonally safe again. Specifically, excluded participants who touched and cuddled a bear behaved much more generously than those who only gazed at the bear (Tai, Zheng, & Narayanan, 2011).

The Embodied Pursuit of Value

Because unequivocal and directed action is signaled through the bodily activation of approach motivations (Harmon-Jones et al., 2009), the activation of the approach motivational system should signal progress in the pursuit of value goals. Specifically, activating the specific desire to approach another should motivate people to see others as worth approaching. Enhancing the value of who (or what) is approached essentially imbues greater meaning and purpose to the behavior of approaching them (Brickman, 1987; Cacioppo, Priester, & Berntson, 1993; Rim, Min, Uleman, Chartrand, & Carlston, 2013).

Activating approach intentions does seem to result in people seeing positive qualities in others that make them more sensible and desirable to approach. For instance, when people enact the bodily movements associated with approach (i.e., flexing arm muscles toward the body), they automatically make more positive dispositional inferences about desirable others (Crawford, McCarthy, Kjaerstad, & Skowronski, 2013). Priming the goal to approach another also automatically elicits greater valuing of others. People primed with affiliation words automatically make more positive, but not negative, dispositional inferences about others (Rim et al., 2013). Priming the more specific approach goal to mate also results in men seeing greater value (in the form of heightened sexual arousal) in the neutral facial expressions of attractive women (Maner et al., 2005).

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People primed with the hope of making a new friend or romantic connection even remake their own self-concepts in this person’s image. They imbue the desire to approach this person with greater value and meaning by making the person part of something most people already value highly – themselves! Slotter and Gardner (2009) explored this process of motivated self–other integration in a series of inventive experiments. In one, participants first identified characteristics as “me” or “not me” (e.g., athletic, artistic, musical, studious, creative, agreeable). This allowed the researchers to identify characteristics that participants thought were highly characteristic (and uncharacteristic) of themselves. Weeks later, participants came to the laboratory. Those in the romantic approach goal condition learned they would be evaluating the profile of a potential partner placed on a dating website. Those in the control condition learned they would be evaluating a profile on a professional website. These profiles indicated that the target possessed one of the traits the participant had described as “not me.” Slotter and Gardner reasoned that participants would claim the trait they had once disavowed as part of their self-concept when someone who offered the hope of a romantic relationship possessed this trait. That is exactly what they found. In fact, people primed with the hope of a romantic connection even incorporate a potential partner’s negative qualities as part of their own self-concepts (Slotter & Gardner, 2012).

Approach has such a powerful effect in imbuing behavior with value and meaning that priming physical cues associated with past approach behaviors is itself enough to activate greater valuing of others. Sweet tastes are culturally and biologically associated with desire. Simply tasting a sweet bit of chocolate is enough to make people value the company of others more and sacrifice more on their behalf (Meier et al., 2012). The color red is culturally and biologically associated with love and sex. Simply exposing men to pictures of women on red backgrounds is enough to make these women appear more attractive and sexually desirable (Elliot & Niesta, 2008; Elliot, Tracy, Pazda, & Beall, 2013). However, this valuing effect only emerges when these women are within childbearing years, and thus, desirable targets to approach (Schwarz & Singer, 2013). Physically attractive facial features are also culturally (and biologically) associated with love and sex. Men and women both direct their attention toward physically attractive others (Maner et al., 2003). Just the thought of a physically attractive partner also automatically elicits positive evaluative responses to such attractive others (Eastwick, Eagly, Finkel, & Johnson, 2011). The scent of a woman ovulating is even enough to make men imbue women with greater inherent value. Men who first detect the scent of ovulation in an item of clothing perceive the next woman they encounter as more sexually interested and they take greater risks in pursuing her (Miller & Maner, 2011b). In sum, priming the desire to approach another, whether directly by priming the thought of a relationship, or indirectly, by priming cues to approach, automatically elicits the tendency to see greater value in another, giving meaning to the desire to approach him or her.

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Conclusion

This chapter made our preliminary case for ascribing safety and value goals the number 1 and 2 positions on our motivational short-list. The pursuit of safety and value goals is essential in the pursuit of belongingness. For relationships like Katy and Todd’s to progress from a fledgling to a fully committed and satisfying one, they need to find ways to be responsive to each other’s needs (Murray & Holmes, 2009, 2011; Reis et al., 2004). The pursuit of safety and value goals does just that by giving Katy reason to feel safe when she puts herself in Todd’s hands and by motivating Todd to be responsive to her needs when she does. The evidence reviewed suggests that safety and value are represented as embodied goals whose pursuit co-opts more general motivational systems for (1) protecting against harm (safety) and (2) sustaining unequivocal action (value).

In the next two chapters, we describe exactly how progress in the pursuit of safety and value in romantic relationships is represented cognitively. In so doing, we return to the “thinking is for doing” principle that opened this one. We will argue that safety and value are contingent and flexible goal pursuits because different situations, partners, and relationships call for different goal priorities and behavioral responses. Thinking is so much for doing that changing the situation automatically shifts how particular goals are even pursued (Cesario, Plaks, Hagiwara, Navarrete, & Higgins, 2010). For instance, activating the general goal to be safe from harm automatically elicits the safety-restoring response the situation best affords. When people are trapped in a small room, priming Black men (and the stereotypic expectation of aggressiveness and hostility) automatically elicits the inclination to “fight,” but when people are in an open space, priming Black men (and this same stereotypic expectation) automatically elicits the inclination to “flee” (Cesario et al., 2010). Because situations better afford some goals and some means of goal pursuit than others, we will begin to explore our situated or contextual take on how safety and value goals can and should bias attention, inference, and behavior in the different types of situations that emerge at each stage of a relationship’s development.