title: When the End (Automatically) Justifies the Means: Automatic Tendency Toward Sex Exchange for Crack Cocaine.
abstract: The current research explores the idea that self-defeating behaviors represent means toward individuals' goals. In this quality, they may be automatically initiated upon goal activation without individual's voluntary intention and thus exemplify the long-held idea that the end justifies the means. To investigate this notion empirically we explored one of the most problematic self-defeating behavior: engagement in sex exchange for crack cocaine. This behavior is common among female drug users despite its well-known health and legal consequences. Although these women know and understand the consequences of such behavior, they have a hard time resisting it when the goal of drug obtainment becomes accessible. Indeed, the current study shows that when the accessibility of such a goal is experimentally increased, participants for whom sex exchange represents an instrumental means to drug obtainment are faster to approach sex-exchange targets in a joystick task despite their self-reported intentions to avoid such behavior.
authors.affiliation: Wayne State University.
authors.forename: Catalina E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Kopetz
authors.affiliation: Emory University.
authors.forename: Anahi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Collado
authors.affiliation: University of Maryland.
authors.forename: Carl W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Lejuez
keywords: drug use; goals; means; risky sexual behavior; self-defeating behavior