YJESP-02671; No.

of pages: 4; 4C:
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology xxx (2011) xxx–xxx

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Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

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Implicit coordination: Sharing goals with similar others intensifies goal pursuit
Garriy Shteynberg ⁎, Adam D. Galinsky
Northwestern University, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The current research explored whether sharing intentionality leads to implicit coordination, a situation in
Received 8 March 2011 which isolated individuals independently adopt a similar standard of behavior. We propose that knowing that
Revised 20 April 2011 a given goal is experienced in common with other in-group members or similar others intensifies goal pursuit.
Available online xxxx
Two experiments examined whether simply being aware that one's own individual goal was also being
separately pursued by similar others results in more goal-congruent behavior. When a promotion goal was
Keywords:
Shared goal
shared with similar others, participants produced greater promotion behaviors than when the same goal was
Social influence shared with different others. Similarly, sharing a prevention goal with similar others led to greater prevention
Social identity behavior than conditions where a) similar others had a different goal and b) different others shared the same
Group process goal. Overall, shared goals served as an intensifier of individual goal pursuit. We discuss shared goals as a
Shared experience foundation for the emergence of social synchrony in groups.
© 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

“All the higher functions originate as actual relations between
human individuals.”
-L.S. Vygotsky (1978, p. 57)
Vygotsky's quote suggests that both human thought and purposeful
behavior are contextualized within and emerge from shared experi-
ences and interactions. More than just producing isolated thought, it is
through these shared experiences that social groups develop collective
standards of behavior. In fact, human social groups converge in their
behavioral characteristics not only through behavioral imitation
(Bandura, 1977; Chartrand & Bargh, 1999), but also through sharing
abstract forms of knowledge, including shared memories and principles
(Asch, 1952; Hardin & Higgins, 1996; James, 1907; Lewin, 1943;
Vygotsky, 1978). The emergence of coordination and social consensus
across human groups has been documented within parent–child dyads
(Meltzoff, Kuhl, Movellan, & Sejnowski, 2009), small groups (Sherif,
1936), organizations (Schneider, 1987) and nations (Triandis, 1994). A
long-standing quest therefore has been to identify the psychological
mechanisms by which group members exert influence, oftentimes
subtle, on one another's knowledge and action to produce coordination
and convergence in behavior.
One psychological process by which coordination in human groups
emerges is known as social tuning, where people pay attention and
adjust to the communicated attitudes, affective states, memories and
basic experiences of other in-group members. For instance, studies
show that one's own psychological states tend to gravitate toward the
attitudes (Echterhoff, Higgins, & Levine, 2009; Sinclair, Lowery,
Hardin, & Colangelo, 2005), moods (Huntsinger, Lun, Sinclair, &
Clore, 2009) and memories (Hirst & Echterhoff, 2008) of in-group
members or desirable affiliation partners. Similarly, when people
think their group members are experiencing the same stimulus as
they are, their memory for that stimulus improves (Shteynberg,
2010). These different forms of convergence lead to the possibility of
implicit coordination, where isolated individuals act in similar ways.
Whereas this past work shows that social tuning affects how group
members evaluate, feel and remember their reality, we explore
whether this same process helps explain how group members strive
within that reality.
The current research explores whether the mere awareness of
shared intentionality (Searle, 1995; Tomasello & Carpenter, 2007)
with members of one's social group intensifies one's own individual
goal pursuit. Specifically, we test whether simply knowing one's own
individual goal is shared with similar others will lead that goal to be
adopted with greater vigor and intensity. Our central premise is that
knowledge that in-group members are experiencing the same
individual goal that I am will lead me to engage in more goal-
consistent behaviors, even when the intensity of their goal pursuit
cannot be observed. Across our experiments, we seek to show that
goal tuning can result from the mere perception that in-group others
are simply experiencing the same individual goal as oneself. Further,
we establish the minimal conditions necessary to produce this
shared-goal effect on goal pursuit (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, & Flament,
1971).
Shared goal pursuit as an intensifier of individual goal pursuit

⁎ Corresponding author. To successfully navigate their physical and social worlds, in-
E-mail address: g-shteynberg@kellogg.northwestern.edu (G. Shteynberg). dividuals must figure out how to prioritize their goals. We propose

0022-1031/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2011.04.012

Please cite this article as: Shteynberg, G., & Galinsky, A.D., Implicit coordination: Sharing goals with similar others intensifies goal pursuit,
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2011), doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2011.04.012
2 G. Shteynberg, A.D. Galinsky / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology xxx (2011) xxx–xxx
that mere awareness that other members of one's in-group are
attending to and pursuing a given goal is a key factor in influencing
individual goal prioritization. Notably, this subtle mechanism allows
for goal tuning even when the intensity of the actual goal pursuit by
others is hidden or difficult to ascertain.
Our hypothesis is based on the notion that the survival of the
human species to the present day has depended on its evolved
capacity to take collective action (Plotkin, 2003; Wilson & Wilson,
2007). Whether hunting, building shelter, or waging war, humans act
in social groups. To effectively undertake collective action, groups had
to first obtain a certain consensus regarding the priorities of their
goals. Groups that attained consensus in goal prioritization would
likely enhance their chances of survival. Therefore, psychological
mechanisms that promoted adoption of shared goals would have
offered a selective advantage.
Shared goals versus group goals
It is important to note that the experience of a shared goal is not
equivalent to having a group goal. A group goal is where inter-
dependent group members work collaboratively towards the same
desired end-state. For example, a group goal exists when students are
put into groups and assigned a group project; they must work
together to complete the project and they share a common fate (i.e.,
grade). In contrast, a shared goal can be pursued independently as a
personally or individually held goal. What makes it shared is simply
that other in-group members are also experiencing that same goal.
Overview
We conducted two experiments to test whether sharing a goal
with similar others would produce more goal-congruent behavior. In
Experiment 1, we predicted that when a promotion goal was shared
with similar others, participants would produce more promotion
behaviors. In Experiment 2, we predicted that sharing a prevention
goal with similar others would lead to greater prevention behavior
compared to when a) similar others had a different goal or b) different
others shared the same goal. Only when a goal is a) shared b) with
similar others will goal pursuit increase.
The current research makes a critical advance over previous
scholarship on shared experiences of stimuli (Shteynberg, 2010) by
exploring whether the pursuit of abstract goals can be impacted by
the perception of shared intentionality. Moreover, diverging from
scholarship on attitudinal transfer and goal contagion, we explore
whether the social tuning of goals can occur even when in-group
members don't communicate positive attitudes towards the goal (e.g.,
Echterhoff et al., 2009; Sinclair et al., 2005) or demonstrate actual goal
pursuit (e.g., Aarts, Gollwitzer, & Hassin, 2004; Loersch, Aarts, Payne,
& Jefferis, 2008).
Pilot experiment
To establish the minimal conditions for social identification, we
had each participant select an avatar color to represent themselves
online and manipulated whether their color choice was the same or
different from the choices of the other participants (see Shteynberg,
2010). Our paradigm builds off the minimal group paradigm (Tajfel
et al., 1971) and is based in social identity research showing that
sharing a psychological tendency with others creates a sense of social
identification and connection (Turner, 1999; Turner, Hogg, Oakes,
Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987). For example, simply knowing that others
also underestimate the number of dots on a screen or also prefer
Kandinsky paintings over Klee paintings (Billig & Tajfel, 1973), leads
to a shared social identity and to in-group favoritism (i.e., preferential
treatment for fellow underestimators or Kandinsky admirers). We
expected that sharing the same avatar color would lead participants to
Please cite this article as: Shteynberg, G., & Galinsky, A.D., Implicit coordination: Sharing goals with similar others intensifies goal pursuit,
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2011), doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2011.04.012
feel a greater sense of social connection. We also measured perceived
arousal because arousal is a possible alternative explanation for
subsequent goal adoption (e.g., Geen, 1991).
Eighty-four undergraduates (59.5% females; mean age = 19.6 years)
were seated in front of computers separated by dividers. They were
informed that two other participants would join them online. To begin
the study, participants were instructed to select an avatar color of their
choice (i.e., red, blue, yellow) to represent themselves. We then
manipulated the avatar colors of the other two participants to either
match or mismatch the participant's color choice. Participants in the
similar-others condition saw that the other two participants had selected
the same avatar color as they did (e.g., yellow, yellow, yellow).
Participants in the different-others condition saw that all participants
selected unique avatar colors (e.g., yellow, red, blue). Participants then
filled out a 20-item social connection manipulation check (e.g., social,
cooperative, alone (r), α = .91) and 17 items from a perceived-arousal
scale (α = .91, Anderson, Deuser, & DeNeve, 1995).
Participants in the similar-others condition (M = 3.76; SD = .47)
reported feeling more social than participants in the different-others
condition (M = 3.52, SD = .61), t(82) = 2.00, p = .049, d = .44. There
was no difference in arousal, t(82) = .84, p = .41. Thus, this minimal
manipulation was successful in creating a sense of social connection to
others.
Experiment 1 sharing a promotion goal
Our first experiment tested whether sharing a promotion goal
with similar others would lead to increased promotion behavior.
Research has found that promotion goals induce a state of eagerness
(Higgins, 1998). Within the signal detection paradigm, individuals in a
state of eagerness emphasize getting “hits” and avoiding “misses”,
thus keeping the hit rate high (Crowe & Higgins, 1997; Higgins, 1998).
We gave participants a promotion goal prior to a word recognition
task and our dependent measures were two different measures of
performance: hit rates and false alarm rates. Because regulatory focus
research suggests that a promotion focus is associated with greater hit
rates but not with false alarm rates (Crowe & Higgins, 1997; Higgins,
1998), we predicted that participants in the similar-others condition
would have a higher hit rate. Thus, in Experiment 1, higher hit rates
served as evidence of greater promotion behavior and hence
increased promotion goal adoption.
Participants and design
Thirty-eight undergraduates (78.9% females; mean age=19.2 years)
were randomly assigned to a similar-others or a different-others
condition.
Procedure
Participants were seated in different rooms and chose an avatar to
represent themselves in an online environment. They were then given
the similarity–difference manipulation from the Pilot Experiment.
Next, participants were asked to look at a series of nine five-letter,
nonsense words (targets) that appeared one at a time for 2 s each. We
gave participants a promotion goal by informing them, “your goal is to
be correct at least 80% of the time” (adopted from Crowe & Higgins,
1997; Levine, Higgins, & Choi, 2000). Participants were told that
others were experiencing the same goal — we gave them explicit
instructions that all participants were receiving the same goal. All
participants shared the same goal with the other two participants
present in the experiment but, depending on condition, participants
had the same avatar color as the others or each participant had a
unique avatar color.
Participants next saw twenty nonsense words (nine of the original
targets, eleven distractors), randomized within participants, one at a
 G. Shteynberg, A.D. Galinsky / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology xxx (2011) xxx–xxx
time. For each word, participants were asked to indicate whether the
word appeared in the initial list of words or whether it was a new
word. Hit rates were measured by the number of words a participant
correctly identified as being on the original list. False alarm rates were
measured by the number of times a participant identified a word as
being on the original list when it was not. Of primary interest was the
hit rate across conditions.
Results
The similar-others condition (M= .98, SD =.05) had a higher hit rate
than the different-others condition, (M=.87, SD= .20), F(1, 36)= 4.47,
p= .04, d= .70. The difference in false alarms rates was not significant,
F(1, 36) =1.84, p=.18.
When similar others were given the same goal as the participant,
the influence of that goal on the participant's subsequent behavior
was more pronounced — sharing a promotion goal with similar others
led to a higher hit rate than sharing a promotion goal with different
others. The fact that participants in the similar-others condition
exhibited higher hit rates, but not false alarm rates, indicates that the
effect was specific to the adoption of a promotion goal rather than just a
general improvement in performance. However, it could be argued that
the mere social identification, not sharing a promotion goal with similar
others, led to greater promotion behavior. To rule out a direct effect of
social identification on promotion behavior, we conducted a second
experiment that involved a prevention focus to address this concern.
Experiment 2
The next study provided a more stringent test of our model. We
have proposed that increased goal adoption is especially likely when
two conditions are met: the goal is a) shared b) with similar others.
The next experiment included an additional condition where similar
others were present but held a different goal from the participants. In
this new condition, we predicted a lower goal adoption because of the
non-shared nature of the goal.
We also used a prevention goal in the next experiment to rule out
concerns from the last experiment that social identification indepen-
dent of shared goals produced greater promotion behavior. Regula-
tory focus theory posits that prevention goals create a state of
vigilance (Higgins, 1998). Within the signal detection paradigm,
individuals in a state of vigilance emphasize the attainment of “correct
rejections” and avoidance of “false alarms”, thus keeping one's false
alarm rate low (Crowe & Higgins, 1997; Higgins, 1998). Whereas
promotion focus affects hit rates, prevention focus drives false alarm
rates (Higgins, 1998). Thus, we predicted that participants would
have a lower false alarm rate when a prevention goal was shared with
similar others compared to when either a) similar others were given a
different goal or b) different others shared the same goal.
Participants and design
Participants were 77 undergraduates (64.2% females; mean
age = 19.53 years) who were randomly assigned to one of three
conditions: similar-others/shared-goal condition; similar-others/
different-goal condition; different-others/shared-goal condition.
Procedure
The procedure was very similar to Experiment 1. However, the
promotion goal was replaced with a prevention goal. Before the word
recognition task, participants were told, “your goal is to avoid being
incorrect more than 20% of the time” (Crowe & Higgins, 1997; Levine
et al., 2000).
Importantly, in the similar-others/different-goal condition, partici-
pants were told that all three individuals would receive a different
Please cite this article as: Shteynberg, G., & Galinsky, A.D., Implicit coordination: Sharing goals with similar others intensifies goal pursuit,
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2011), doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2011.04.012
3
goal. In reality, participants across all conditions saw the same
prevention goal before completing the signal detection task.
Our primary dependent measure was the false alarm rate; we also
measured hit rates. Finally, we measured feelings of competitiveness to
rule out the possibility that participants in the similar-others/shared-goal
condition felt more competitive.
Results
Analyses revealed a significant effect of condition on false alarm
rate, F(2, 74) = 3.27, p = .04. Participants in the similar-others/
shared-goal condition (M = 13%, SD = .13) had lower false alarm
rates than participants in the different-others/shared-goal condition
(M= 21%, SD =.13), t(74) =2.09, p =.03, d= .65, and participants in
the similar-others/different-goal condition (M= 23%, SD= .17), t(74) =
2.37, p= .03, d =.65 (Fig. 1). These latter two conditions did not differ,
t(74)= .33, p =.74. Hit rates among conditions did not differ, Fb 1.
Finally, self-reported feelings of competitiveness were not affected by
condition, Fb 1.
As predicted, false alarm rates were significantly lower when one's
individually pursued prevention goal was experienced and individu-
ally pursued by similar others. This effect did not materialize when
similar others were present but had a different goal from the
participant. This effect was also goal specific as there were no
differences in hit rates (i.e., promotion behaviors) across conditions.
These findings provide further support for our central hypothesis
that goals assumed to be experienced by similar others are more
readily adopted. Only when the prevention goal was a) shared and b)
by similar others, did false alarm rates decline. This study establishes
important discriminate validity by showing that the presence of
similar others is insufficient to increase goal adoption.
Discussion
Across two experiments involving two distinct goals, we found
that participants pursued goals more intensely when they were aware
that similar others were experiencing the same individual goal. We
consistently found greater goal adoption in the similar-other/shared-
goal condition as evidenced by greater goal-consistent behavior. The
results cannot be easily explained by increased arousal or the mere
presence of more similar others. When similar others were experiencing
different goals from the self, less goal-consistent behavior occurred.
Only when goals were a) shared and b) experienced by similar others
did participants produce more goal-congruent behavior.
From a minimal genesis to a robust emergence
These findings highlight the minimal conditions under which
individuals will tune their own goal priorities to the assumed goals of
other group members. Participants had no information as to the actual
Fig. 1. False alarm rates across conditions (Experiment 2). Error bars represent ± 1 SEM.
Note. False alarm rates across conditions with standard error bars.
4 G. Shteynberg, A.D. Galinsky / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology xxx (2011) xxx–xxx
vigor or intensity with which similar others adopted the shared goal. In
fact, at no time during the experiments did participants communicate
with one another in reference to the goals. Participants were only aware
that the same goal was given to and experienced by similar others. Thus
unlike group polarization (Isenberg, 1986), the social attunement of
goals does not depend on actual group interaction or discussion.
Shared goals as a building block of cultural coordination
“What applies to sparrows, dolphins and chimpanzees, applies
equally to culture in humans; the differences lie in what constitutes
the elements of variation in human culture—in what is shared”
(Plotkin, 2011).
The current findings shed light on a psychological mechanism by
which individual goal-driven behaviors are rendered more standardized
within social groups and offer insight into the emergence of cultural
coordination. The increased convergence of individual goals may make
collective action to meet those goals more likely. And group goals, ones
pursued interdependently with other group members, may be
prioritized because they are experienced as shared. Thus, the experience
of sharing a goal with one's ingroup may be an initial stepping-stone
towards the emergence of cultural coordination within groups and even
possibly cultural differentiation between groups. Indeed, the shared-
goal effect may help drive what truly separates humans from sparrows,
dolphins and chimpanzees: the emergence and perpetuation of distinct
cultures of intention.
Acknowledgments
The research was facilitated by funding from the Dispute
Resolution Research Center at the Kellogg School of Management at
Northwestern University. The authors would like to thank Sonia Kang,
Jacob Hirsh and Evan Apfelbaum for their comments on a version of
this article.
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