Actions and Goals (Psychology)

Any action is an intended goal, continuously achieved, and a variable means adjusted according to the requirements of higher-order goals and external disturbances. The degree of volition one senses depends on whether he is focusing on the intended action (as the goal state of a perception of action) or on the higher-order reason for the action, the higher-order goal served by the action. When attention is on the higher-order goal, the lower-level action is sensed as output; when the attention is focused on the intentional nature of the lower-level action, the same action is sensed as an input, a perceived and controlled consequence of an output of still lower level (say, "effort").

What can be said about the higher levels is mostly negative. We do not know the basis on which the highest-level goals are set. We are incapable of tracing them to any specific external circumstances, particularly not present-time circumstances. We can offer some reasonable conjectures about how biochemical and genetic factors enter, particularly in connection with learning, but we can by no acceptable scientific means show that those factors are "ultimate" determinants, not in any sense. It is time to stop trying to make everything fit nineteenth-century ideas of physical determinism, which are based on little more than an allergic reaction to religion. The upper regions of human organization are a mystery which we have barely begun to approach; we will never understand them on the basis of a jab-and-jerk model of behavior.

Internal standards at one level can get into conflict with one another. That is, two control systems can make incompatible demands on control systems lower down. For example, I might hold to two principles, one of honesty and one of fair recompense. If I do not have an internal standard at the higher level of system concept to order those two principles, I can find myself with internal conflict. As long as I can get fair compensation for any labor in an honest way, I am all right. But if I go on for a long time getting paid less than I think my work is worth, what am I to do? I start to figure out a way to cheat the company out of some money. But then my principle of honesty makes my conscience hurt, and I look again for some honest way to get my salary increased. But I cannot think of a way that would get me enough money. So I start thinking again about some skulduggery. Back and forth I oscillate, using up attention and energy that could be put to better use. If I am lucky, I reorganize my hierarchy. I might move honesty up to the level of system concept. That is, I might come to view the social world as unworkable unless people (including me) are honest. I would believe not just that honesty is a good thing, but that I would be throwing sand into the gears of the world in which I live if I am dishonest. Or I might move honesty down to the level of program and add it, in my mind, to the company's rules. That is, I would consider honesty to be any act that does not flagrantly break a clear rule. Or I might think of some other way to rearrange things to keep conflict from occurring.