Action Control

"e;It is not thought as such that can move anything, but thought which is for the sake of something and is practical."e; This discerning insight, which dates back more than 2000years to Aristotle, seems to have been ignored by most psycholo- gists. For more than 40years theories of human action have assumed that cogni- tion and action are merely two sides of the same coin. Approaches as different as S-O-R behaviorism,social learning theory, consistency theories,and expectancy- value theories of motivation and decision making have one thing in common: they all assume that "e;thought (or any other type of cognition) can move any- thing,"e; that there is a direct path from cognition to behavior. In recent years, we have become more and more aware of the complexities in- volved in the relationship between cognition and behavior. People do not always do what they intend to do. Aside from several nonpsychological factors capable of reducing cognition-behavior consistency, there seems to be a set of complex psychological mechanisms which intervene between action-related cognitions, such as beliefs, expectancies, values, and intentions,and the enactment of the be- havior suggested by those cognitions. In our recent research we have focused on volitional mechanismus which presumably enhance cognition-behavior consistency by supporting the main- tenance of activated intentions and prevent them from being pushed aside by competing action tendencies.