Mindlessly Motivated – a Critical Review of Subliminal Motivation
Affective Science June 30, 2026 Lena Lange, Axel Cleeremans
The role of consciousness in motivation is examined, questioning whether unconscious incentives can drive goal pursuit. A critical review of empirical and theoretical works supporting unconscious motivation contrasts them with a valence-centered account. Recent methodological advances in unconscious processing raise concerns about accurately assessing perceptual awareness in previous cognitive neuroscience experiments that proposed alternative processing routes for unconscious external reward cues. A conflation of automatic behavior responses with intentional, motivated behavior is discussed. The subjective experience of valence, a fundamental aspect of phenomenal consciousness, is argued to be the core organizing principle of human intentional behavior, supported by findings that affective evaluation is integral to perceptual experience.