IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES we often treated motivation as separate from cognition, and we often approached it in a rather static manner. That is, we typically assumed that (either chronically or situationally) individuals have a high or a low degree of some motivation and that this systematically impacts various relevant phenomena. There is nothing inherently wrong with such an approach, but it does miss something important about motivation, namely its lability and dynamism. Our wishes, interests and desires are rarely so steadfast or constant. Rather, they typically fluctuate from one moment to the next as we succumb to an assortment of distractions, temptations, and digressions. Rather than relentlessly pursuing the task at hand, we often day-dream, ruminate, run to the fridge or check our e-mail, and our shifting moods and emotional states often track our changing motivational conditions.

An insight into such motivational dynamics may be gained if we abandon the separateness assumption of the "motivation versus cognition" program, and adopt a "motivation as cognition" approach. The "motivation as cognition" paradigm is naturally equipped to handle dynamism, because in cognitive systems, dynamism is the "name of the game". Our cognitive activity hardly ever stops, not even in our sleep. Our associations are in a constant flux, and our thoughts "fire up" one another in a rapid succession. Many such thoughts are motivational, representing our goals, the means to pursue them, or discrepancies from goal-attainment.

Goal systems theory indeed belongs in the "motivation as cognition" paradigm. Its topic is the behavior of mental representations of motivational networks composed of goals and means. It concerns the architecture of goal systems giving rise to the possibilities of choice and substitution, intrinsic motivation, and unconscious motivation induced by subliminal priming. We are tracing the implications of goal systems theory to a variety of major cognitive, motivational, and social phenomena using a variety of research methods and research paradigms ranging from the focus on cognitive micro-processes tapped by lexical decision studies to broad cross cultural comparisons using open ended questionnaires and observational techniques.