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An understudied issue in the goal priming literature is why the same prime can provoke different responses in different people. The current research sheds light on this issue by investigating whether an individual difference variable, core self‐evaluations (CSE), accounts for different responses from the same prime. Based on the findings of experiments showing that individuals with high CSE have higher performance after consciously setting a task‐related goal than individuals with lower CSE, two hypotheses were tested: (1) Individuals who score high on CSE perform better following a subconsciously primed goal for achievement than do individuals who score low on CSE, and (2) this effect is mediated by a self‐set goal. Two laboratory experiments (n = 207, 191) and one field experiment (n = 62) provided support for the hypotheses. These findings suggest that personality variables such as the CSE can provide an …