Implicit coordination: Sharing goals with similar others Intensifies goal pursuit
Abstract
The current research explored whether sharing intentionality leads to implicit coordination, a situation in which isolated individuals independently adopt a similar standard of behavior. We propose that knowing that a given goal is experienced in common with other in-group members or similar others intensifies goal pursuit. Two experiments examined whether simply being aware that one's own individual goal was also being separately pursued by similar others results in more goal-congruent behavior. When a promotion goal was shared with similar others, participants produced greater promotion behaviors than when the same goal was shared with different others. Similarly, sharing a prevention goal with similar others led to greater prevention behavior than conditions where a) similar others had a different goal and b) different others shared the same goal. Overall, shared goals served as an intensifier of individual goal pursuit. We discuss shared goals as a foundation for the emergence of social synchrony in groups.
Citation
Shteynberg, Garriy, and Adam Galinsky. "Implicit coordination: Sharing goals with similar others Intensifies goal pursuit." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 47 (2011): 1291-1294.
Each author name for a Columbia Business School faculty member is linked to a faculty research page, which lists additional publications by that faculty member.
Each topic is linked to an index of publications on that topic.