title: When pooping babies become more appealing: the effects of nonconscious goal pursuit on experienced emotions.
abstract: In this report, we argue that the intensity of the emotions people experience is partly determined by the goals they nonconsciously pursue, and that this effect is functional in nature: Emotions are modulated in ways that may increase the probability of goal achievement. To test this hypothesis, we primed female participants with a motherhood goal and then measured their level of disgust in response to mildly disgusting pictures. Priming led to a reduction of disgust in response to goal-relevant stimuli (e.g., pictures of babies with runny noses) but not goal-irrelevant stimuli. This effect was moderated by the women's probability of conception, a proxy of their ability to pursue the motherhood goal.
authors: Department of Psychology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91905, Israel. daniella.shidlovski@mail.huji.ac.il
authors: Daniella
authors: D
authors: Shidlovski
authors: Ran R
authors: RR
authors: Hassin
mesh_terms: D003243:Consciousness; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005298:Fertility / Q000502:physiology; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D011581:Psychological Tests; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology