Embodied goal pursuit

Abstract

Daum, Sommerville, and Prinz propose that the interrelation between the symbolic and embodied system needs more research attention. The proposal is based on the observation that human infants start out with embodied processes to understand the actions of others, and that these processes allow them to communicate with other people surprisingly well. What does the symbolic (language) system add to an infant’s communication when it becomes available to the infant around the end of the first year of life? Because the embodied versus the symbolic system are potentially dissociable and can yield different perception and interpretation of the same social behavior, the study of whether and how embodied and symbolic understanding is coordinated seems crucial. The authors suggest that the interaction between the embodied and symbolic systems can best be studied by analyzing how the bi-directional relation of the two systems affects socialcognitive development, as the infant becomes a mature social agent. Specifically, they propose to investigate the extent to which the embodied and the symbolic systems work together, impede each other, or are independent in affecting social communication and thus a person’s social-cognitive development. The authors also suggest studying the interaction of the two systems at their developmental roots. Indeed, it is when the embodied system is ‘‘hit’’ by the symbolic system that processes of how the two systems affect each other should become evident. Daum et al. describe various lines of research supporting each of the proposed relations between the systems: Collaboration, interference, and independence. For instance, regarding collaboration, children’s early embodied social understanding and skills are observed to form the bedrock for a more formal understanding of other persons’ behavior (Aschersleben, Hofer, & Jovanovic, 2008). Daum et al. provide valuable insights into a new and exciting route of analyzing how the embodied and the symbolic systems interrelate. These insights from an ontogenetic perspective may be supplemented by research from a situational perspective. The latter research would ask: How do the embodied and the symbolic systems relate in influencing the behavior of a person in a specified context? The analysis of goal pursuit provides an ideal opportunity to study this question. Research on goal pursuit (goal setting and goal striving) so far has focused on the symbolic system. Specifically, people are considered to commit to goals and plan their attainment by using symbolic procedures. Stepping back from this traditional perspective (Oettingen & Gollwitzer, 2001), the question arises to what extent the embodied system and the symbolic system work together, work against each other, or work independently in affecting goal setting and goal striving. Research on goal pursuit has long distinguished between aspects of goal setting, such as goal choice and commitment, and aspects of goal striving, such as goal enactment and shielding (Lewin, Dembo, Festinger, & Sears, 1944; summary by Oettingen & Gollwitzer, 2001). Successful goal attainment requires sufficient commitment to goals. It also requires the planning of appropriate goal-oriented behaviors during the subsequent goal-striving phase. Mentally contrasting a desired positive future with its impeding negative reality is a self-regulatory strategy that may lead to strong goal commitments