TY - JOUR

T1 - Well self-regulated people use mental contrasting

AU - Sevincer, A. Timur

AU - Oettingen, Gabriele

AU - Mehl, P.J.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2017 Hogrefe Publishing.

PY - 2017/11/1

Y1 - 2017/11/1

N2 - Mentally contrasting a desired future with reality is a self-regulation strategy helping people manage their life by promoting selective goal pursuit: people pursue feasible futures and disengage from unfeasible ones. We investigated whether participants who effectively regulate their academic and everyday life spontaneously use mental contrasting. Indeed, students who were good self-regulators in the academic domain, as indicated by their high self-reported academic self-regulation skills, high need for achievement, and above-average grades mentally contrasted when writing about an important achievement-related wish (Study 1). So did participants who were good self-regulators in everyday life as indicated by their high self-reported generalized self-regulation skills and high need for cognition (Study 2). Results indicate that successful self-regulation is linked to spontaneous mental contrasting.

AB - Mentally contrasting a desired future with reality is a self-regulation strategy helping people manage their life by promoting selective goal pursuit: people pursue feasible futures and disengage from unfeasible ones. We investigated whether participants who effectively regulate their academic and everyday life spontaneously use mental contrasting. Indeed, students who were good self-regulators in the academic domain, as indicated by their high self-reported academic self-regulation skills, high need for achievement, and above-average grades mentally contrasted when writing about an important achievement-related wish (Study 1). So did participants who were good self-regulators in everyday life as indicated by their high self-reported generalized self-regulation skills and high need for cognition (Study 2). Results indicate that successful self-regulation is linked to spontaneous mental contrasting.

KW - Academic performance

KW - Five-factor personality traits

KW - Mental contrasting

KW - Need for achievement

KW - Need for cognition

KW - Self-regulation

KW - Psychology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85037094412&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1027/1864-9335/a000322

DO - 10.1027/1864-9335/a000322

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 48

SP - 348

EP - 364

JO - Social Psychology

JF - Social Psychology

SN - 1864-9335

IS - 6

ER -