Most research in the HuMAN Lab focuses on the exploration of nonconscious motivational needs and processes in humans, how they manifest themselves in brain, physiology, and behavior, and how they interact with an individual's conscious motivational values and behavioral goals. Many studies center around three fundamental nonconscious motives: the needs for power, affiliation, and achievement. Individuals with a strong power motive derive pleasure from influencing and dominating others; individuals with a strong affiliation motive experience close, harmonious contact with other people as satisfying; and individuals with a strong achievement motive get a kick out of doing something well or improving on a task. As a consequence, being high in a given motive makes a person more prone to orient and energize her or his behavior toward motivational incentives in the environment and to better learn behaviors and cues associated with the satisfaction of the motive.

Past and ongoing research in the HuMAN Lab has focused on the following issues:

• Causes and consequences of matches and mismatches between implicit motives and explicit goals
• Differences between implicit and explicit motivation
• Assessment of implicit motives
• Endocrine correlates of implicit motives
• Brain activation correlates of implicit motives
• Facial expressions of emotion as motivational incentives
• Effects of implicit motives on Pavlovian and instrumental learning
• The role of referential competence and brain asymmetry in personality and motivational processes