@article{ref1,
title="When the end (automatically) justifies the means: automatic tendency toward sex exchange for crack cocaine",
journal="Motivation science",
year="2015",
author="Kopetz, Catalina E. and Collado, Anahi and Lejuez, Carl W.",
volume="1",
number="4",
pages="233-244",
abstract="The current research explores the idea that self-defeating behaviors represent means toward individuals' goals. In this quality, they may be automatically initiated upon goal activation without individual's voluntary intention and thus exemplify the long-held idea that the end justifies the means. To investigate this notion empirically we explored one of the most problematic self-defeating behavior: engagement in sex exchange for crack cocaine. This behavior is common among female drug users despite its well-known health and legal consequences. Although these women know and understand the consequences of such behavior, they have a hard time resisting it when the goal of drug obtainment becomes accessible. Indeed, the current study shows that when the accessibility of such a goal is experimentally increased, participants for whom sex exchange represents an instrumental means to drug obtainment are faster to approach sex-exchange targets in a joystick task despite their self-reported intentions to avoid such behavior.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="2333-8113",
doi="10.1037/mot0000025",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/mot0000025"
}