ABSTRACT
M ost would agree with the statement that human behavior is goal directed—that is, the human being is an intentional system, with needs, wants, purposes, desires, predispositions, and motives (Srull & Wyer, 1986, p. 503). The idea diat goals and motives as well as prior expectations and values shape perception is, in psychology, broadly accepted and reflects a tradition that includes the early works of Freud (1900/1965) and experiments by Bruner and colleagues (e.g., Bruner & Postman, 1948) and Hastorf and Cantril (1954). Indeed, a keen interest of much modern social psychology is the manner in which the goals and motives that guide overt behavior also influence the cognitive and affective systems that mediate the generation of behavior (Srull & Wyer, 1986; see Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Higgins, 1997; Kruglanski et al., 2002; Mook, 2000). How the situation is construed by the perceiver, and how goals and motives shape this construal process, is the central focus of much current social psychology and much of the modern social psychology of negotiation (Ross & Ward, 1995).
