When does the intention-superiority effect occur? Activation patterns before and after task completion, and moderating variables

This experiment investigated the intention-superiority effect, potential moderators of the effect, including personality disposition (i.e., state vs. action orientation) and cue source (self vs. experimenter), and the fate of the effect after performance. The intention-superiority effect was defined as greater accessibility for intention-related words than words to be remembered. Accessibility was assessed with lexical decision latencies for words from short action scripts, and activation patterns were measured before and after scripts were performed. A general preperformance intention-superiority effect was replicated, but this effect depended on a personality disposition by cue interaction. For the state-oriented group, the effect occurred when participants expected performance to be self cued, but not experimenter cued. For the action-oriented group, the effect occurred when participants expected performance to be experimenter cued, but not self cued. After script performance, a sustained intention-superiority effect was found. Possible reasons for the differences in results found in this study and past studies are discussed.