Hope and Nonconscious Academic Goals: The Role of Evaluative Readiness

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Feldman, Peera Wongupparaj, Maximilian Kubota This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8202171/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Hope, a cognitive–motivational construct defined by agency and pathways thinking, has been consistently linked to goal pursuit and achievement. However, existing studies examine only conscious forms of goal striving. The present experiment investigated whether dispositional hope may also influence “nonconscious” goal pursuit through evaluative readiness—the automatic tendency to evaluate goal-relevant stimuli positively. Eighty-four undergraduates were randomly assigned to complete either a scrambled-sentences task designed to nonconsciously activate an academic goal or a control task, followed by an automatic/implicit attitudes measure. Facilitation scores on this measure (faster responses to positive vs. negative adjectives associated with academic-goal-relevant stimuli) indexed evaluative readiness. Analysis revealed that individuals higher in dispositional hope showed greater evaluative readiness than those lower in hope, F (1,80) = 5.51, p = .02, partial η² = .06. By demonstrating that hopeful individuals automatically favor goal-relevant cues, this study broadens Hope Theory to include nonconscious mechanisms of goal pursuit. Dispositional Hope Hope Theory Nonconscious Goals Evaluative Readiness Figures Figure 1 Introduction 1. Hope and Nonconscious Academic Goals: The Role of Evaluative Readiness Hope has long been recognized as a motivator in human behavior, particularly in academic contexts. According to Snyder’s (1994, 2002) Hope Theory, hope is defined as a cognitive, goal-directed construct with two interrelated components: Agency thinking is the perceived capacity to initiate and sustain movement toward goals, and pathways thinking is the perceived ability to generate routes to achieve those goals. This conceptualization of hope has most commonly been assessed using the Adult Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1991), a dispositional measure. Research shows that levels of hope predict a variety of positive outcomes, including lower depression (Leite et al., 2019) and anxiety (Richardson, 2023), as well as greater life satisfaction (Gallagher & Lopez, 2009) and meaning in life (Feldman & Snyder, 2005). In university settings, high-hope students outperform their low-hope peers. They tend to attain higher GPAs, are more likely to graduate in four years, and make greater progress on personal goals (Feldman et al., 2009; Feldman & Kubota, 2015; Gallagher et al., 2017; Ge et al., 2023). However, existing research on hope has focused on conscious goal pursuit—intentional efforts to attain desired outcomes. These studies assume that individuals are aware of the goals they are pursuing and are actively directing their thoughts and actions toward them. A parallel line of research has established that people can pursue goals without conscious awareness. Nonconscious goal pursuit occurs when environmental cues activate goals outside of awareness, leading individuals to behave in goal-directed ways (Chartrand & Bargh, 2002). For example, merely being in a classroom or exposed to words associated with achievement may activate academic goals and influence behavior, even if the individual is unaware of this influence (Chen et al., 2021; Custers et al., 2019). One proposed mechanism underlying nonconscious goal pursuit is “ evaluative readiness” —the automatic or implicit evaluation of goal-relevant stimuli as more positive or desirable than other stimuli (Ferguson & Bargh, 2008; Ferguson & Wojnowicz, 2011). This process is one of top-down readiness—a state of being “set” or prepared to positively evaluate goal-related stimuli outside of conscious awareness. As a result, evaluative processing becomes faster, thus facilitating engagement with one’s goals (Ferguson & Wojnowicz, 2011). In a series of studies, Ferguson (2008) found that activation of an achievement-related goal increased the rapidity of evaluations of goal-relevant stimuli. In one study, for instance, when an academic goal was activated nonconsciously, undergraduates showed quicker positive reactions to stimuli like “library” or “study” compared to neutral stimuli. These effects were measured using a subliminal automatic attitude measure, bypassing the need for introspective awareness (Ferguson, 2008). Intriguingly, she found that GPA moderated this effect, with students who had higher GPA demonstrating greater evaluative readiness than students with lower GPA. Based on these results, she theorized that evaluative readiness is strongest among individuals who possess greater skill in the goal domain (in this case, those with greater academic skill). Combining these two pieces of literature poses important questions: Are individual differences in motivational traits, like hope, relevant in the context of nonconscious goal pursuit? If hope enhances the pursuit of consciously held goals, might it also shape how people respond to goals activated outside of awareness? In particular, we wish to investigate whether levels of hope predict evaluative readiness. In the aforementioned study (Ferguson, 2008), GPA may have essentially functioned as a proxy for hope. That is, students with higher GPA may have been more hopeful, and it was this hope that drove greater evaluative readiness regarding academically-goal-related stimuli, rather than skill, per se . Investigating whether hope is related to evaluative readiness could contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the interplay between trait-level motivation and automatic cognitive processes as well as extend Hope Theory into the realm of nonconscious goal pursuit. If hope influences nonconscious processes, this suggests a more pervasive role for the construct in human motivation than previously recognized. 2. The Present Study In the present study, we examined whether dispositional hope moderated evaluative readiness in the context of nonconscious academic goal activation. Participants completed a scrambled sentence task based on Ferguson (2008), designed to appear as a linguistic exercise, but which was intended to nonconsciously activate either an academic achievement goal or no goal. Prior research has shown that brief, incidental exposure to words related to a specific goal can activate that goal without conscious awareness (Aarts et al., 2004; Chartrand & Bargh, 1996; Shah & Kruglanski, 2003). Next, participants completed an automatic attitude assessment, evaluating their implicit responses to stimuli that were either aligned with the primed academic goal (e.g., “library”) or unrelated (e.g., “window”). Key stimuli were presented subliminally, ensuring that evaluative responses were not influenced by deliberate thought processes (Olson & Fazio, 2002). We had two hypotheses: First, we expected that individuals with higher levels of dispositional hope would demonstrate greater evaluative readiness—reflected in quicker response times on the automatic attitudes measure—toward academic goal-relevant stimuli following nonconscious academic goal priming, compared to individuals lower in hope. We expected no such outcome for non-goal-relevant stimuli. Second, we hypothesized that participants would remain unaware of this goal activation process and the associated changes in their evaluative responses. Methods 3.1 Participants A total of 89 undergraduates at a privative university in Northern California participated in the experiment. Five participants had incomplete data and were removed from the final dataset, leaving a sample of 84 individuals. Demographics are presented in Table 1. Participants were recruited through the student participant pool and received credit toward satisfying the research participation requirements of their introductory psychology courses. All individuals provided informed consent, and the study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the primary author’s university. INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE 3.2 Procedure Each participant was run separately. After providing informed consent, they were given a packet labeled “Linguistic Questionnaire,” which contained a scrambled words task modeled after Ferguson (2008). Specifically, each participant received a paper worksheet containing 30 sets of five words and was asked to construct grammatically correct sentences from each set. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two priming conditions: academic goal (experimental condition) or neutral (control condition). For participants in the experimental condition, to activate an academic achievement goal outside of conscious awareness, 15 of these sets contained words associated with academic goals (e.g., “studying,” “classroom”). For instance, they were given the words “there, are, they, classroom, going” and asked to construct sentences (i.e., “they are going to the classroom”). For control participants, all word sets contained only neutral content (e.g., “apples,” “inside”). After the scrambled sentences task, participants moved to a computer to complete the automatic attitude task measuring evaluative readiness, which was based on Ferguson (2008) and adapted from Olson and Fazio (2002). During this task, an academic prime (e.g., “grades,” “books,” “library”) or control prime (e.g., “window,” “table,” “weather”) was flashed subliminally onscreen, followed by a strongly valanced target adjective (e.g., “wonderful,” “awful”) which remained until a button was pressed on a control box. Participants were instructed to evaluate whether that target adjective was “good” or “bad” by pressing one of two buttons on a control box. A total of 24 target adjectives were rotated across trials. More specifically, each trial began with a string of nonsense characters (e.g., “A1$!JR&89”) displayed for 56 milliseconds (ms), followed by a 28 ms prime (either academic or control), and another 42 ms presentation of a nonsense string (to mask the prime). This was immediately followed by the target adjective, which remained visible until participants made their judgment. Participants completed 16 practice trials with no primes, followed by two experimental blocks. In these blocks, each academic prime appeared four times: twice with a positive target and twice with a negative target. Control primes were paired similarly. The length of time between presentation of the target adjective and the “good” or “bad” buttons being pressed was measured on each trial. Following the computer task, participants completed a questionnaire containing demographic items, a question inquiring about GPA, and a measure of dispositional hope (see Measures section). To check participants’ awareness of the priming manipulation and purpose of the automatic attitudes measure, a verbal debriefing was conducted. Participants were asked open-ended questions regarding the purpose of the study and whether they noticed any patterns or unusual features in the tasks. Specific questions probed for awareness of thematic content in the scrambled sentences task and the presence of any subliminal stimuli during the attitude measure. 3.3 Measures 3.3.1 Demographics Questionnaire . Participants were surveyed regarding their age, gender, race/ethnicity, and year in university. 3.3.2 Adult Hope Scale (AHS). The AHS (Snyder et al., 1991) was used to measure dispositional hope. It contains 4 items tapping pathways thinking, 4 tapping agency thinking, and 4 serving as distracters, which participants rate using a 1 ( definitely false ) to 8 ( definitely true ) scale. Sample items are “I can think of many ways to get the things in life that are most important to me,” and “I energetically pursue my goals.” Evidence supports the reliability and validity of the AHS (Snyder et al., 1991). In the present study, Cronbach’s alpha was .79. 3.3.3. GPA. Participants answered the question “What is your GPA at [Blinded for Review] University?”. Self-report was used given that past research shows high correlations between self-reported GPA and GPA assessed through student records (Cassady, 2001). For instance, a meta-analysis of 29 studies including 56,265 college and high school student participants demonstrated a sample-size-weighted correlation of .84 between self-reported and registrar-reported GPA (Kuncel, et al., 2005). 3.4 Analyses Facilitation scores were calculated by subtracting response times (in milliseconds) to positive target adjectives from response times to negative target adjectives for trials containing subliminally presented academic primes. The same calculation was performed for trials containing control primes. These facilitation scores served as the dependent variable in subsequent analyses. To test our main hypothesis, we conducted a mixed ANCOVA, with one within-subjects factor (i.e., trails with academic vs. control primes on the automatic attitude measure) and two between-subjects factors (condition: academic scrambled words task vs. neutral scrambled words task, and hope: low vs. high median split). GPA was covaried. Two follow-up between-subjects ANCOVAs were performed examining responses for trials where only academic primes and trials where only control primes were presented on the attitude measure. Partial η² was used to estimate the magnitude of effects and was interpreted as indicating small (.01), medium (.06), and large (.14) effects, respectively (Richardson, 2011). All analyses were performed in the SPSS 30.0 software package. Results In preparation for analyses, we checked hope scores and GPA for assumptions of normality (i.e., kurtosis < 4 and skewness < 2; Boos et al., 2000), which were met (Hope: skewness = -.82, kurtosis = 1.44; GPA: skewness = -.47, kurtosis = .004). We also tested hope and GPA for any demographic differences. No differences were found in hope by age ( r = .12, p = .29), gender ( t (82) = -.57, p = .57), race/ethnicity ( F (4,78) = 1.30, p = .28), or year in university ( F (3,80) = 1.94, p = .13). Likewise, no differences were found in GPA by age ( r = -.17, p = .13), gender ( t (82) = -.95, p = .35), race/ethnicity ( F (4,78) = 1.72, p = .15), or year in university ( F (3,80) = .32, p = .81). Finally, a Pearson correlation analysis revealed a statistically significant, small-to-moderate relationship between hope and GPA ( r = .32, p = .003). As mentioned, to test our main hypothesis, we performed a mixed ANCOVA. We expected an interaction between condition (academic scrambled-words task vs. neutral scrambled-words task) and hope (high vs. low) in predicting greater facilitation scores for trials containing subliminally presented academic primes than control primes. To ensure that findings were not due to participants’ GPAs, we covaried GPA. This analysis revealed a statistically significant interaction between hope and trial type (academic vs. control prime), F (1,79) = 4.73, p = .03, partial η² = .06. However, no three-way interaction was found (i.e., condition x hope x trial type), F (1,79) = .08, p = .78. That is, participants in both scrambled-words conditions showed similar patterns. To better understand the hope ´ trial-type interaction, we performed two follow-up one-way ANCOVAs (covarying GPA, as before), with hope (high vs. low) serving as independent variable. In the first, using only facilitation scores for academic primes as dependent variable, there was a significant main effect for hope, F (1,81) = 7.81, p = .006, partial η² = .09. In the second, using only facilitation scores for neutral primes as dependent variable, no such effect was found, F (1,81) = .39, p = .84. See Figure 1 for means. Taken together, these findings show that higher-hope participants demonstrated greater implicit preference for academic-related stimuli (but not neutral stimuli) than lower-hope participants, indicating evaluative readiness—and that this result was independent of GPA. INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE The manipulation check indicated that 93% of participants reported no suspicion regarding the purpose of the study, awareness of the priming manipulation, or purpose of the automatic attitudes measure. Excluding the six participants who expressed suspicion did not change the pattern of results. Discussion We sought to examine whether dispositional hope—a variable traditionally associated with conscious goal pursuit—plays a role in the pursuit of nonconsciously activated academic goals. Our findings show that individuals higher in dispositional hope demonstrated significantly greater evaluative readiness toward academic goal-relevant stimuli than those lower in hope. This effect emerged despite participants’ lack of awareness regarding both the priming manipulation and the content of the automatic attitude measure. These findings suggest that hope may extend into nonconscious or implicit motivational processes. These results contribute to a body of literature indicating that goals can be activated and pursued outside of awareness (Chartrand & Bargh, 2002; Custers et al., 2019). Ferguson (2008) introduced the concept of evaluative readiness as a possible mechanism by which nonconscious goal pursuit unfolds, demonstrating that individuals automatically evaluate goal-relevant stimuli more positively once a nonconscious goal has been activated. She also found that such evaluative readiness was strongest among those with greater skill in the goal domain. As mentioned, she demonstrated that GPA moderated the effects of an academic goal-priming manipulation on evaluative readiness, such that undergraduates with higher GPAs exhibited greater evaluative readiness than those with lower GPA. Building on this finding, in the present study, we found that hope emerged as a significant moderator of evaluative readiness, even while controlling for GPA (Ferguson, 2008). This suggests that evaluative readiness may not be a universal response to nonconscious goal activation, but rather a trait-contingent shift that supports goal-directed behavior among individuals with greater hope. That is, hopeful individuals may not only be more facile at consciously pursuing goals (Cheavens et al., 2019; Feldman et al., 2009), but may be more implicitly attuned to environmental cues that align with their goals. One unexpected finding was the absence of a significant difference between scrambled-words priming conditions. We initially hypothesized that participants completing the academic scrambled-words task would display the aforementioned effect, whereas participants completing the control task would not. This was not observed. One possible explanation for this is the context in which the study took place: The experiment was conducted in a university setting, which may have served as a stronger environmental prime for academic goals than the experimental manipulation. Ferguson (2008) acknowledged similar issues in her own work, noting that goal-related context can sometimes override experimental conditions. In future research, stronger priming manipulation may more effectively elicit this top-down process (Gibbons et al., 2014). Another explanation for our lack of effect on condition is that priming manipulations sometimes have failed to produce reliable effects. Early demonstrations of social and goal priming were highly influential (e.g., Bargh et al., 1996), but subsequent studies have yielded mixed results (Doyen et al., 2012; Shanks et al., 2013; MacGiolla et al., 2024). This suggests that the null result we observed for the scrambled-sentence manipulation may reflect broader concerns about the robustness of priming paradigms, particularly when priming cues are relatively weak. Nonetheless, our overall finding regarding hope’s relationship with evaluative readiness offers theoretical implications. First, it blurs the boundary between conscious and nonconscious motivation, suggesting that traits like hope may function across these domains. This challenges the traditional view of hope as purely deliberative and opens new avenues for research. Second, our results underscore the role of individual differences in moderating the effects of nonconscious goal activation, supporting Ferguson’s (2008) argument that factors such as skill, motivation, previous achievement, and goal importance may shape the extent to which evaluative readiness emerges. Like all studies, the present research has limitations. First, it concerned a single context and population—academic achievement among university students. It remains an open question whether hope would predict evaluative readiness in other goal domains and populations. Second, although our sample size was similar to past studies (Ferguson, 2008), it was nonetheless relatively small ( n = 84). Finally, our findings relied on a particular automatic attitude measure to assess evaluative readiness. We chose this measure based on its use in previous studies (see Ferguson & Wojnowicz, 2011). However, considering additional ways of assessing evaluative readiness could further bolster the findings. With regard to future directions, to test the generalizability of the present findings, investigators could consider replicating our study in larger and varied samples, concerning differing goal types. Moreover, to extend our findings, the inclusion of behavioral measures—such as study persistence or performance on academic tasks—could offer additional evidence of hope’s impact on non-consciously activated goal pursuit. Finally, our research utilized a “positive” priming paradigm. Researchers could also consider the role of negative priming or the related phenomenon of goal shielding ( Förster et al., 2005; Shah et al., 2002). That is, exposure to goal-irrelevant or opposing cues may temporarily inhibit the processing of goal-relevant stimuli. Examining such conditions could clarify whether or not hopeful individuals maintain their evaluative advantage when environmental cues subtly discourage goal engagement. In particular, individuals with high levels of hope may be more likely to exhibit slower response time under negative priming conditions, reflecting temporary inhibition rather than a lack of motivation. In conclusion, this study provides the first evidence that hope may contribute to nonconscious goal pursuit via evaluative readiness. By demonstrating that hopeful individuals are evaluatively attuned to goal-relevant stimuli without being explicitly aware of the goal itself, these findings offer new insight into how motivational traits may shape cognitive processes that support achievement. Future research should continue to explore this issue, illuminating how individual differences in characteristics like hope shape not only what we strive for, but also how we may nonconsciously prepare to pursue it. Declarations Competing Interests Statement The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Ethics Statement This study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the primary author’s university. Participants provided written informed consent. Author Contribution DBF: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, investigation, methodology, project administration, software, supervision, writing - original draft, and writing - reviewing and editing. PW: conceptualization, writing - review and editing. MK: investigation, software, review and editing. Data Availability The data that supports the findings of this study are not publicly available but are available upon reasonable request. References Aarts, H., Gollwitzer, P. M., & Hassin, R. R. (2004). Goal contagion: perceiving is for pursuing. Journal of personality and social psychology , 87 (1), 23-37. Bargh, J. A., Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996). Automaticity of social behavior: Direct effects of trait construct and stereotype activation on action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71 (2), 230–244. Cassady, J. C. (2001). Self-reported GPA and SAT scores. Eric Digest , ED458216 Chartrand, T. L., & Bargh, J. A. (1996). 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Mac Giolla, E., Karlsson, S., Neequaye, D. A., & Bergquist, M. (2024). Evaluating the replicability of social priming studies. Meta-Psychology , 8 , MP.2022.3308 Olson, M. A., & Fazio, R. H. (2002). Implicit acquisition and manifestation of classically conditioned attitudes. Social Cognition , 20 (2), 89-104. Richardson, J. T. E. (2011). Eta squared and partial eta squared as measures of effect size in educational research. Educational Research Review, 6 (2), 135-147. Richardson, A. L. (2023). Hope and anxiety. Current Opinion in Psychology , 101664. Shah, J. Y., & Kruglanski, A. W. (2003). When opportunity knocks: bottom-up priming of goals by means and its effects on self-regulation. Journal of personality and social psychology , 84 (6), 1109-1122. Shah, J. Y., Friedman, R., & Kruglanski, A. W. (2002). Forgetting all else: On the antecedents and consequences of goal shielding. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83 (6), 1261–1280. Shanks, D. R., Newell, B. R., Lee, E. H., Balakrishnan, D., Ekelund, L., Cenac, Z., ... & Moore, C. (2013). Priming intelligent behavior: An elusive phenomenon. PloS one , 8 (4), e56515. Snyder, C. R. (1994). The Psychology of Hope . Free Press. Snyder, C. R. (2002). Hope theory: Rainbows in the mind. Psychological Inquiry , 13 (4), 249-275. Snyder, C. R., Harris, C., Anderson, J. R., Holleran, S. A., Irving, L. M., Sigmon, S. T., ... & Harney, P. (1991). The will and the ways: development and validation of an individual-differences measure of hope. Journal of personality and social psychology , 60 (4), 570-585. Tables Table is available in the Supplementary Files section. Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files Table.docx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. 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Feldman","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Santa Clara University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"David","middleName":"B.","lastName":"Feldman","suffix":""},{"id":613980993,"identity":"ebf5af88-da78-4d6b-9f25-86ff4e77e682","order_by":1,"name":"Peera Wongupparaj","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA10lEQVRIiWNgGAWjYBADOQYJBsYDEDYPcVqMgVoYIFrYiNSS2EC0FnP25mMffjAcTu+f3WNw4AeDnTyDfO8BvFose44lz+xhOJw7484Zg4M9DMmGDWx8CXi1GNzIMQb693buBokcgwM8DMwJQIcZ4Ndy//1nxj8Mt9MNgFoO/mGoJ0LLDR5mZqAtCSAth3kYDhPWYtmTZswsY/DfcMaNtILDMgbHDdvYcvBrMWc//JjxTUWaPP+M5I0P31RUy/MznyHgMCQSwmDDqx5Z8SgYBaNgFIwCnAAAoLQ+PfBmWxIAAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"","institution":"Chulalongkorn University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Peera","middleName":"","lastName":"Wongupparaj","suffix":""},{"id":613980994,"identity":"efe34bc4-a321-4d22-b86c-52083baf6a8a","order_by":2,"name":"Maximilian Kubota","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Santa Clara University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Maximilian","middleName":"","lastName":"Kubota","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-11-25 10:38:22","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8202171/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8202171/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":105822629,"identity":"e8ed8ce7-b426-4510-b51a-8eb5be94591b","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-31 13:28:20","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":266586,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eSee image above for figure legend.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"Figure1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8202171/v1/c2f4ced762248c6c6f2f4bc5.png"},{"id":108005781,"identity":"ecd8da37-b54f-48a6-b0d6-e12974edd966","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-04-28 12:48:18","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":346109,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8202171/v1/5fcfd7cf-cf8d-4e05-aa3f-886385f2a45a.pdf"},{"id":105822628,"identity":"6046d879-6d74-4b97-8391-63db3d493877","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-31 13:28:20","extension":"docx","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":20679,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Table.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8202171/v1/50b96043bf52b1dba3bda624.docx"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Hope and Nonconscious Academic Goals: The Role of Evaluative Readiness","fulltext":[{"header":"Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1. Hope and Nonconscious Academic Goals: The Role of Evaluative Readiness\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHope has long been recognized as a motivator in human behavior, particularly in academic contexts. According to Snyder’s (1994, 2002) Hope Theory, hope is defined as a cognitive, goal-directed construct with two interrelated components: Agency thinking is the perceived capacity to initiate and sustain movement toward goals, and pathways thinking is the perceived ability to generate routes to achieve those goals. This conceptualization of hope has most commonly been assessed using the Adult Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1991), a dispositional measure. Research shows that levels of hope predict a variety of positive outcomes, including lower depression (Leite et al., 2019) and anxiety (Richardson, 2023), as well as greater life satisfaction (Gallagher \u0026amp; Lopez, 2009) and meaning in life (Feldman \u0026amp; Snyder, 2005).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn university settings, high-hope students outperform their low-hope peers. They tend to attain higher GPAs, are more likely to graduate in four years, and make greater progress on personal goals (Feldman et al., 2009; Feldman \u0026amp; Kubota, 2015; Gallagher et al., 2017;\u0026nbsp;Ge et al., 2023). However, existing research on hope has focused on conscious goal pursuit—intentional efforts to attain desired outcomes. These studies assume that individuals are aware of the goals they are pursuing and are actively directing their thoughts and actions toward them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA parallel line of research has established that people can pursue goals without conscious awareness. Nonconscious goal pursuit occurs when environmental cues activate goals outside of awareness, leading individuals to behave in goal-directed ways (Chartrand \u0026amp; Bargh, 2002). For example, merely being in a classroom or exposed to words associated with achievement may activate academic goals and influence behavior, even if the individual is unaware of this influence (Chen et al., 2021; Custers et al., 2019).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne proposed mechanism underlying nonconscious goal pursuit is “\u003cem\u003eevaluative readiness”\u003c/em\u003e—the automatic or implicit evaluation of goal-relevant stimuli as more positive or desirable than other stimuli (Ferguson \u0026amp; Bargh, 2008; Ferguson \u0026amp; Wojnowicz, 2011). This process is one of top-down readiness—a state of being “set” or prepared to positively evaluate goal-related stimuli outside of conscious awareness. As a result, evaluative processing becomes faster, thus facilitating engagement with one’s goals (Ferguson \u0026amp; Wojnowicz, 2011).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn a series of studies, Ferguson (2008) found that activation of an achievement-related goal increased the rapidity of evaluations of goal-relevant stimuli. In one study, for instance, when an academic goal was activated nonconsciously, undergraduates showed quicker positive reactions to stimuli like “library” or “study” compared to neutral stimuli. These effects were measured using a subliminal automatic attitude measure, bypassing the need for introspective awareness (Ferguson, 2008). Intriguingly, she found that GPA moderated this effect, with students who had higher GPA demonstrating greater evaluative readiness than students with lower GPA. Based on these results, she theorized that evaluative readiness is strongest among individuals who possess greater skill in the goal domain (in this case, those with greater academic skill).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCombining these two pieces of literature poses important questions: Are individual differences in motivational traits, like hope, relevant in the context of nonconscious goal pursuit? If hope enhances the pursuit of consciously held goals, might it also shape how people respond to goals activated outside of awareness? In particular, we wish to investigate whether levels of hope predict evaluative readiness. In the aforementioned study (Ferguson, 2008), GPA may have essentially functioned as a proxy for hope. That is, students with higher GPA may have been more hopeful, and it was this hope that drove greater evaluative readiness regarding academically-goal-related stimuli, rather than skill, \u003cem\u003eper se\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInvestigating whether hope is related to evaluative readiness could contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the interplay between trait-level motivation and automatic cognitive processes as well as extend Hope Theory into the realm of nonconscious goal pursuit. If hope influences nonconscious processes, this suggests a more pervasive role for the construct in human motivation than previously recognized.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e2. The Present Study\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the present study, we examined whether dispositional hope moderated evaluative readiness in the context of nonconscious academic goal activation. Participants completed a scrambled sentence task based on Ferguson (2008), designed to appear as a linguistic exercise, but which was intended to nonconsciously activate either an academic achievement goal or no goal. Prior research has shown that brief, incidental exposure to words related to a specific goal can activate that goal without conscious awareness (Aarts et al., 2004; Chartrand \u0026amp; Bargh, 1996; Shah \u0026amp; Kruglanski, 2003).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNext, participants completed an automatic attitude assessment, evaluating their implicit responses to stimuli that were either aligned with the primed academic goal (e.g., “library”) or unrelated (e.g., “window”). Key stimuli were presented subliminally, ensuring that evaluative responses were not influenced by deliberate thought processes (Olson \u0026amp; Fazio, 2002). We had two hypotheses: First, we expected that individuals with higher levels of dispositional hope would demonstrate greater evaluative readiness—reflected in quicker response times on the automatic attitudes measure—toward academic goal-relevant stimuli following nonconscious academic goal priming, compared to individuals lower in hope. We expected no such outcome for non-goal-relevant stimuli. Second, we hypothesized that participants would remain unaware of this goal activation process and the associated changes in their evaluative responses.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Methods","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e3.1 Participants\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA total of 89 undergraduates at a privative university in Northern California participated in the experiment. Five participants had incomplete data and were removed from the final dataset, leaving a sample of 84 individuals. Demographics are presented in Table 1. Participants were recruited through the student participant pool and received credit toward satisfying the research participation requirements of their introductory psychology courses. All individuals provided informed consent, and the study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the primary author’s university.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eINSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e3.2 Procedure\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEach participant was run separately. After providing informed consent, they were given a packet labeled “Linguistic Questionnaire,” which contained a scrambled words task modeled after Ferguson (2008). Specifically, each participant received a paper worksheet containing 30 sets of five words and was asked to construct grammatically correct sentences from each set. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two priming conditions: academic goal (experimental condition) or neutral (control condition). For participants in the experimental condition, to activate an academic achievement goal outside of conscious awareness, 15 of these sets contained words associated with academic goals (e.g., “studying,” “classroom”). For instance, they were given the words “there, are, they, classroom, going” and asked to construct sentences (i.e., “they are going to the classroom”). For control participants, all word sets contained only neutral content (e.g., “apples,” “inside”).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter the scrambled sentences task, participants moved to a computer to complete the automatic attitude task measuring evaluative readiness, which was based on Ferguson (2008) and adapted from Olson and Fazio (2002). During this task, an academic prime (e.g., “grades,” “books,” “library”) or control prime (e.g., “window,” “table,” “weather”) was flashed subliminally onscreen, followed by a strongly valanced target adjective (e.g., “wonderful,” “awful”) which remained until a button was pressed on a control box. Participants were instructed to evaluate whether that target adjective was “good” or “bad” by pressing one of two buttons on a control box. A total of 24 target adjectives were rotated across trials.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMore specifically, each trial began with a string of nonsense characters (e.g., “A1$!JR\u0026amp;89”) displayed for 56 milliseconds (ms), followed by a 28 ms prime (either academic or control), and another 42 ms presentation of a nonsense string (to mask the prime). This was immediately followed by the target adjective, which remained visible until participants made their judgment. Participants completed 16 practice trials with no primes, followed by two experimental blocks. In these blocks, each academic prime appeared four times: twice with a positive target and twice with a negative target. Control primes were paired similarly. The length of time between presentation of the target adjective and the “good” or “bad” buttons being pressed was measured on each trial.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFollowing the computer task, participants completed a questionnaire containing demographic items, a question inquiring about GPA, and a measure of dispositional hope (see Measures section). To check participants’ awareness of the priming manipulation and purpose of the automatic attitudes measure, a verbal debriefing was conducted. Participants were asked open-ended questions regarding the purpose of the study and whether they noticed any patterns or unusual features in the tasks. Specific questions probed for awareness of thematic content in the scrambled sentences task and the presence of any subliminal stimuli during the attitude measure.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e3.3 Measures\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e3.3.1 Demographics Questionnaire\u003c/em\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eParticipants were surveyed regarding their age, gender, race/ethnicity, and year in university.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e3.3.2 Adult Hope Scale (AHS).\u003c/em\u003e The AHS (Snyder et al., 1991) was used to measure dispositional hope. It contains 4 items tapping pathways thinking, 4 tapping agency thinking, and 4 serving as distracters, which participants rate using a 1 (\u003cem\u003edefinitely false\u003c/em\u003e) to 8 (\u003cem\u003edefinitely true\u003c/em\u003e) scale. Sample items are “I\u0026nbsp;can think of many ways to get the things in life that are most important to me,” and “I energetically pursue my goals.” Evidence supports the reliability and validity of the AHS (Snyder et al., 1991). In the present study, Cronbach’s alpha was .79.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e3.3.3. GPA.\u003c/em\u003eParticipants answered the question “What is your GPA at [Blinded for Review] University?”. Self-report was used given that past research shows high correlations between self-reported GPA and GPA assessed through student records (Cassady, 2001). For instance, a meta-analysis of 29 studies including 56,265 college and high school student participants demonstrated a sample-size-weighted correlation of .84 between self-reported and registrar-reported GPA (Kuncel, et al., 2005).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e3.4 Analyses\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFacilitation scores were calculated by subtracting response times (in milliseconds) to positive target adjectives from response times to negative target adjectives for trials containing subliminally presented academic primes. The same calculation was performed for trials containing control primes. These facilitation scores served as the dependent variable in subsequent analyses. To test our main hypothesis, we conducted a mixed ANCOVA, with one within-subjects factor (i.e., trails with academic vs. control primes on the automatic attitude measure) and two between-subjects factors (condition: academic scrambled words task vs. neutral scrambled words task, and hope: low vs. high median split). GPA was covaried. Two follow-up between-subjects ANCOVAs were performed examining responses for trials where only academic primes and trials where only control primes were presented on the attitude measure. Partial η² was used to estimate the magnitude of effects and was interpreted as indicating small (.01), medium (.06), and large (.14) effects, respectively (Richardson, 2011). All analyses were performed in the SPSS 30.0 software package.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Results","content":"\u003cp\u003eIn preparation for analyses, we checked hope scores and GPA for assumptions of normality (i.e., kurtosis \u0026lt; 4 and skewness \u0026lt; 2; Boos et al., 2000), which were met (Hope: skewness = -.82, kurtosis = 1.44; GPA: skewness = -.47, kurtosis = .004). We also tested hope and GPA for any demographic differences. No differences were found in hope by age (\u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = .12, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .29), gender (\u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e (82) = -.57, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .57), race/ethnicity (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e (4,78) = 1.30, \u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .28), or year in university (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e (3,80) = 1.94, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .13). Likewise, no differences were found in GPA by age (\u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = -.17, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .13), gender (\u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e (82) = -.95, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .35), race/ethnicity (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e (4,78) = 1.72, \u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .15), or year in university (\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e (3,80) = .32, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .81). Finally, a Pearson correlation analysis revealed a statistically significant, small-to-moderate relationship between hope and GPA (\u003cem\u003er\u003c/em\u003e = .32, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .003).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs mentioned, to test our main hypothesis, we performed a mixed ANCOVA. We expected an interaction between condition (academic scrambled-words task vs. neutral scrambled-words task) and hope (high vs. low) in predicting greater facilitation scores for trials containing subliminally presented academic primes than control primes. To ensure that findings were not due to participants’ GPAs, we covaried GPA. This analysis revealed a statistically significant interaction between hope and trial type (academic vs. control prime), \u003cem\u003eF\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e(1,79) = 4.73, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .03, partial η² = .06. However, no three-way interaction was found (i.e., condition x hope x trial type), \u003cem\u003eF\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e(1,79) = .08, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .78. That is, participants in both scrambled-words conditions showed similar patterns.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo better understand the hope\u0026nbsp;´\u0026nbsp;trial-type interaction, we performed two follow-up one-way ANCOVAs (covarying GPA, as before), with hope (high vs. low) serving as independent variable. In the first, using only facilitation scores for academic primes as dependent variable, there was a significant main effect for hope, \u003cem\u003eF\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e(1,81) = 7.81, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .006, partial η² = .09. In the second, using only facilitation scores for neutral primes as dependent variable, no such effect was found, \u003cem\u003eF\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e(1,81) = .39, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e = .84. See \u003cstrong\u003eFigure 1\u003c/strong\u003e for means. Taken together, these findings show that higher-hope participants demonstrated greater implicit preference for academic-related stimuli (but not neutral stimuli) than lower-hope participants, indicating evaluative readiness—and that this result was independent of GPA.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eINSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe manipulation check indicated that 93% of participants reported no suspicion regarding the purpose of the study, awareness of the priming manipulation, or purpose of the automatic attitudes measure. Excluding the six participants who expressed suspicion did not change the pattern of results.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003eWe sought to examine whether dispositional hope—a variable traditionally associated with conscious goal pursuit—plays a role in the pursuit of nonconsciously activated academic goals. Our findings show that individuals higher in dispositional hope demonstrated significantly greater evaluative readiness toward academic goal-relevant stimuli than those lower in hope. This effect emerged despite participants’ lack of awareness regarding both the priming manipulation and the content of the automatic attitude measure. These findings suggest that hope may extend into nonconscious or implicit motivational processes.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese results contribute to a body of literature indicating that goals can be activated and pursued outside of awareness (Chartrand \u0026amp; Bargh, 2002; Custers et al., 2019). Ferguson (2008) introduced the concept of evaluative readiness as a possible mechanism by which nonconscious goal pursuit unfolds, demonstrating that individuals automatically evaluate goal-relevant stimuli more positively once a nonconscious goal has been activated. She also found that such evaluative readiness was strongest among those with greater skill in the goal domain. As mentioned, she demonstrated that GPA moderated the effects of an academic goal-priming manipulation on evaluative readiness, such that undergraduates with higher GPAs exhibited greater evaluative readiness than those with lower GPA. Building on this finding, in the present study, we found that hope emerged as a significant moderator of evaluative readiness, even while controlling for GPA (Ferguson, 2008).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis suggests that evaluative readiness may not be a universal response to nonconscious goal activation, but rather a trait-contingent shift that supports goal-directed behavior among individuals with greater hope. That is, hopeful individuals may not only be more facile at consciously pursuing goals (Cheavens et al., 2019; Feldman et al., 2009), but may be more implicitly attuned to environmental cues that align with their goals.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne unexpected finding was the absence of a significant difference between scrambled-words priming conditions. We initially hypothesized that participants completing the academic scrambled-words task would display the aforementioned effect, whereas participants completing the control task would not. This was not observed. One possible explanation for this is the context in which the study took place: The experiment was conducted in a university setting, which may have served as a stronger environmental prime for academic goals than the experimental manipulation. Ferguson (2008) acknowledged similar issues in her own work, noting that goal-related context can sometimes override experimental conditions. In future research, stronger priming manipulation may more effectively elicit this top-down process (Gibbons et al., 2014).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnother explanation for our lack of effect on condition is that priming manipulations sometimes have failed to produce reliable effects. Early demonstrations of social and goal priming were highly influential (e.g., Bargh et al., 1996), but subsequent studies have yielded mixed results (Doyen et al., 2012; Shanks et al., 2013; MacGiolla et al., 2024). This suggests that the null result we observed for the scrambled-sentence manipulation may reflect broader concerns about the robustness of priming paradigms, particularly when priming cues are relatively weak.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNonetheless, our overall finding regarding hope’s relationship with evaluative readiness offers theoretical implications. First, it blurs the boundary between conscious and nonconscious motivation, suggesting that traits like hope may function across these domains. This challenges the traditional view of hope as purely deliberative and opens new avenues for research. Second, our results underscore the role of individual differences in moderating the effects of nonconscious goal activation, supporting Ferguson’s (2008) argument that factors such as skill, motivation, previous achievement, and goal importance may shape the extent to which evaluative readiness emerges.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLike all studies, the present research has limitations. First, it concerned a single context and population—academic achievement among university students. It remains an open question whether hope would predict evaluative readiness in other goal domains and populations. Second, although our sample size was similar to past studies (Ferguson, 2008), it was nonetheless relatively small (\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e = 84). Finally, our findings relied on a particular automatic attitude measure to assess evaluative readiness. We chose this measure based on its use in previous studies (see Ferguson \u0026amp; Wojnowicz, 2011). However, considering additional ways of assessing evaluative readiness could further bolster the findings.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith regard to future directions, to test the generalizability of the present findings, investigators could consider replicating our study in larger and varied samples, concerning differing goal types. Moreover, to extend our findings, the inclusion of behavioral measures—such as study persistence or performance on academic tasks—could offer additional evidence of hope’s impact on non-consciously activated goal pursuit. Finally, our research utilized a “positive” priming paradigm. Researchers could also consider the role of\u0026nbsp;\u003cstrong\u003enegative priming or the related phenomenon of goal shielding (\u003c/strong\u003eFörster et al., 2005; Shah et al., 2002). That is, exposure to goal-irrelevant or opposing cues may temporarily inhibit the processing of goal-relevant stimuli. Examining such conditions could clarify whether or not hopeful individuals maintain their evaluative advantage when environmental cues subtly discourage goal engagement. In particular, individuals with high levels of hope may be more likely to exhibit slower response time under negative priming conditions, reflecting temporary inhibition rather than a lack of motivation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn conclusion, this study provides the first evidence that hope may contribute to nonconscious goal pursuit via evaluative readiness. By demonstrating that hopeful individuals are evaluatively attuned to goal-relevant stimuli without being explicitly aware of the goal itself, these findings offer new insight into how motivational traits may shape cognitive processes that support achievement. Future research should continue to explore this issue, illuminating how individual differences in characteristics like hope shape not only what we strive for, but also how we may nonconsciously prepare to pursue it.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003e \u003ch2\u003eCompeting Interests Statement\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe authors declare no conflicts of interest.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003ch2\u003eEthics Statement\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003e This study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the primary author\u0026rsquo;s university. Participants provided written informed consent.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eAuthor Contribution\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eDBF: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, investigation, methodology, project administration, software, supervision, writing - original draft, and writing - reviewing and editing. PW: conceptualization, writing - review and editing. MK: investigation, software, review and editing.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eData Availability\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe data that supports the findings of this study are not publicly available but are available upon reasonable request.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eAarts, H., Gollwitzer, P. M., \u0026amp; Hassin, R. R. (2004). Goal contagion: perceiving is for pursuing. \u003cem\u003eJournal of personality and social psychology\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e87\u003c/em\u003e(1), 23-37.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eBargh, J. 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(2002).\u0026nbsp;\u003cem\u003eForgetting all else: On the antecedents and consequences of goal shielding.\u003c/em\u003e \u003cem\u003eJournal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83\u003c/em\u003e(6), 1261–1280.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eShanks, D. R., Newell, B. R., Lee, E. H., Balakrishnan, D., Ekelund, L., Cenac, Z., ... \u0026amp; Moore, C. (2013). Priming intelligent behavior: An elusive phenomenon. \u003cem\u003ePloS one\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e8\u003c/em\u003e(4), e56515.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eSnyder, C. R. (1994). \u003cem\u003eThe Psychology of Hope\u003c/em\u003e.\u0026nbsp;Free Press.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eSnyder, C. R. (2002). Hope theory: Rainbows in the mind. \u003cem\u003ePsychological Inquiry\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e13\u003c/em\u003e(4), 249-275.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eSnyder, C. R., Harris, C., Anderson, J. R., Holleran, S. A., Irving, L. M., Sigmon, S. T., ... \u0026amp; Harney, P. (1991). The will and the ways: development and validation of an individual-differences measure of hope. \u003cem\u003eJournal of personality and social psychology\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e60\u003c/em\u003e(4), 570-585.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"},{"header":"Tables","content":"\u003cp\u003eTable is available in the Supplementary Files section.\u003c/p\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Dispositional Hope, Hope Theory, Nonconscious Goals, Evaluative Readiness","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8202171/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8202171/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"Hope, a cognitive–motivational construct defined by agency and pathways thinking, has been consistently linked to goal pursuit and achievement. However, existing studies examine only conscious forms of goal striving. The present experiment investigated whether dispositional hope may also influence “nonconscious” goal pursuit through evaluative readiness—the automatic tendency to evaluate goal-relevant stimuli positively. Eighty-four undergraduates were randomly assigned to complete either a scrambled-sentences task designed to nonconsciously activate an academic goal or a control task, followed by an automatic/implicit attitudes measure. Facilitation scores on this measure (faster responses to positive vs. negative adjectives associated with academic-goal-relevant stimuli) indexed evaluative readiness. Analysis revealed that individuals higher in dispositional hope showed greater evaluative readiness than those lower in hope, F (1,80) = 5.51, p = .02, partial η² = .06. By demonstrating that hopeful individuals automatically favor goal-relevant cues, this study broadens Hope Theory to include nonconscious mechanisms of goal pursuit.","manuscriptTitle":"Hope and Nonconscious Academic Goals: The Role of Evaluative Readiness","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-03-31 13:28:16","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8202171/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"82494e54-2691-40bc-af3f-134ca46a88b0","owner":[],"postedDate":"March 31st, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-03-31T13:28:16+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-03-31 13:28:16","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-8202171","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-8202171","identity":"rs-8202171","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}