90 I. THEORETICAL  PERSPECTI vES AND  CONCEPT uAL uNITS
to bring the individual closer to his or her 
desired end states.
Need‑Fulfilling Goals Result in  “BEATs”
At the heart of the current theory is the idea 
that as people experience needs and pursue 
need-  fulfilling goals, they build mental rep -
resentations of what happened. These repre -
sentations then help them select and pursue 
future goals. In this way, the mental repre -
sentations help turn needs into active goals, 
making them a key part of motivation and, 
as we will see later, of personality. Let’s take 
a closer look at these mental representations.
As people observe the world or pursue 
goals in it, they may implicitly ask them -
selves: “What did I do? What happened? 
How did I feel? What did it mean?” The 
answers take the form of mental represen -
tations that carry forward this information 
and help people decide what to do in the 
future. The attachment literature portrays 
the kinds of acceptance-  related representa -
tions that people can carry forward from 
their early relationships (Bowlby, 1969), and 
Johnson, Dweck, and Chen (2007; see also 
Johnson et al., 2010) provide evidence for 
such representations in infants.
These mental representations are proposed 
to contain one or more goal-  relevant (1) B e-
liefs, (2) E motions, and (3) A ction Tenden -
cies, which I call BEATs. BEATs are closely 
related to past constructs, such as schemas 
(Markus, 1977) or cognitive–  affective pro -
cessing units (Mischel & Shoda, 1995), but 
the term BEATs  is meant to call attention to 
the three building blocks of mental represen -
tations (particularly beliefs) that then serve 
as guides to future action.
What is the role of BEATs in the processes 
leading from needs to goals to behavior? 
When a need is aroused, BEATs can be ac -
tivated, and these stored beliefs, emotions, 
and action tendencies can guide people in 
choosing among possible need- fulfilling 
goals. For example, they can help people in -
terpret the current situation in light of past 
situations, evaluate possible courses of ac -
tion, and project how they will feel if the ac -
tions succeed or fail. In this way, BEATs can 
guide goal selection and pursuit in constant 
interplay with concurrent on-the-  ground ex -
periences.A Focus on Beliefs
BEATs consist of stored beliefs, emotions, 
and action tendencies, but the emphasis in 
the current theory is on beliefs. Much more 
so than has commonly been appreciated in 
psychology, beliefs are a key part of moti -
vation and personality. Some programs of 
research that have  focused on beliefs are at -
tribution theory (Heider, 1958; Kelley, 1973; 
Weiner, 1985), locus-of-  control beliefs (Rot -
ter, 1966), self-  efficacy beliefs (Bandura, 
1977), implicit theories or mindsets (Dweck, 
1999), and beliefs about the world as good 
or just (Janoff-  Bulman, 1992; Lerner, 1980). 
These beliefs all have been shown to have 
clear motivational impact, in that they influ -
ence the selection and pursuit of goals.
Although BEATs, such as beliefs, can be 
formed from and applied to very specific 
goals in very specific situations, they can 
also be developed over many goal-  relevant 
experiences and become more context gen -
eral in their application (see Epstein, 1990). 
When this happens, they can become peo -
ple’s broad guides to how to fulfill their 
needs in the world. Indeed, it is no accident 
that the research programs cited earlier col -
lectively revolve around the important ques -
tion of whether people believe the world is 
good/fair and whether they believe they can 
exert control to achieve their goals in the 
world. These are things people must know 
in order to navigate their world successfully, 
and I return to this point later.
It is important to acknowledge that some 
personality theories have featured beliefs, 
such as cognitive–  affective encodings (e.g., 
Mischel & Shoda, 1995) or personal con -
structs (Kelly, 1963), although they have 
typically not emphasized the motivational 
origins of these beliefs (i.e., their origins in 
needs and need-  relevant goals) or focused on 
their motivational consequences (for a clear 
exception, see Epstein, 1990; see also Beck, 
1996).
Goals Are Accompanied by  Online Acts 
and Experiences
I have suggested that BEATs, the stored 
representations of past experiences, set the 
stage for goal pursuit. This goal pursuit now 
results in online acts and experiences —the 