Non-conscious goal conflicts

The question raised in this paper is whether goal conflicts can occur outside of conscious awareness. Given the numerous and potentially conflicting goals people pursue, and the severe scarcity of mental resources, we offer a positive answer. Six experiments that employed a dissociation paradigm tested this hypothesis. Using three implicit behavioral markers of goal conflict (increased decision times, increased decision variance and heightened sensitivity to environmental information), and one physiological marker (increased arousal as measured by skin conductance level), these experiments document goal conflicts that do not reach conscious awareness.