Unconscious goals: specific or unspecific? The potential harm of the goal/gene analogy

Abstract

Huang & Bargh's (H&B's) definition of goals is ambiguous between "specific goals" - the end-state of a token action I am about to perform - and "unspecific goals" - the end-state of an action-type (without specifying how this would be achieved). The analogy with selfish genes pushes the authors towards the former interpretation, but the latter would provide a more robust theoretical framework.