ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that attitudes and related concepts such as preferences, prejudices, and values are closely related to intention formation and thus important for a comprehensive understanding of how humans act in a social context. It focuses on a few mental phenomena to illustrate how deeply intentions are interwoven with non-intended mental processes that denote things that happen, responses that become salient, or slips. In the puzzling interplay of cognitive and affective influences, basic processes of information processing are relevant in intentional self-development (ISD) and contribute to the understanding of how people pursue goals. Basic cognitive processes such as attention or memory are resources that are positively valued by many people. The chapter shows that the relevance of non-predictable events for ISD. Cognitive consistency is a fundamental principle of information processing linked to our motivation to change cognitions and behaviour. In the process of ISD, knowledge and abilities are utilized to attain goals.
