TY - JOUR

T1 - Implicit theories and motivational focus

T2 - Desired future versus present reality

AU - Sevincer, A. Timur

AU - Kluge, Lena

AU - Oettingen, Gabriele

N1 - Funding Information: Acknowledgments Preparation of this article was supported by German Science Foundation grant OE 237/10-1 to Gabriele Oettin-gen. We thank Greta Wagner and Linus Wittmann for their help with collecting the data.

PY - 2014/2/1

Y1 - 2014/2/1

N2 - People's beliefs concerning their abilities differ. Incremental theorists believe their abilities (e.g., intelligence) are malleable; entity theorists believe their abilities are fixed (Dweck in Mindset: the new psychology of success. Random House, New York, 2007). On the basis that incremental theorists should emphasize improving their abilities for the future, whereas entity theorists should emphasize demonstrating their abilities in the present reality, we predicted that, when thinking about their wishes, compared to entity theorists, incremental theorists focus more toward the desired future than the present reality. We assessed participants' motivational focus using a paradigm that differentiated how much they chose to imagine the desired future versus the present reality regarding an important wish (Kappes et al. in Emotion 11: 1206-1222, 2011). We found the predicted effect by manipulating (Study 1) and measuring implicit theories (Study 2), in the academic (Study 1) and in the sport domain (Study 2).

AB - People's beliefs concerning their abilities differ. Incremental theorists believe their abilities (e.g., intelligence) are malleable; entity theorists believe their abilities are fixed (Dweck in Mindset: the new psychology of success. Random House, New York, 2007). On the basis that incremental theorists should emphasize improving their abilities for the future, whereas entity theorists should emphasize demonstrating their abilities in the present reality, we predicted that, when thinking about their wishes, compared to entity theorists, incremental theorists focus more toward the desired future than the present reality. We assessed participants' motivational focus using a paradigm that differentiated how much they chose to imagine the desired future versus the present reality regarding an important wish (Kappes et al. in Emotion 11: 1206-1222, 2011). We found the predicted effect by manipulating (Study 1) and measuring implicit theories (Study 2), in the academic (Study 1) and in the sport domain (Study 2).

KW - Entity theory

KW - Future

KW - Incremental theory

KW - Motivational focus

KW - Reality

KW - Self-regulatory thought

KW - Psychology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84895904587&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/f40d1740-1ad8-339c-89ce-5bb247ff1654/

U2 - 10.1007/s11031-013-9359-0

DO - 10.1007/s11031-013-9359-0

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:84895904587

VL - 38

SP - 36

EP - 46

JO - Motivation and Emotion

JF - Motivation and Emotion

SN - 0146-7239

IS - 1

ER -