Spontaneous Mental Contrasting and Selective Goal Pursuit
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In: Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 39, No. 9, 09.2013, p. 1240-1254.
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Spontaneous Mental Contrasting and Selective Goal Pursuit
AU - Sevincer, A. Timur
AU - Oettingen, Gabriele
PY - 2013/9
Y1 - 2013/9
N2 - Mental contrasting a desired future with reality is a self-regulation strategy that fosters selective goal pursuit; people pursue goals for which they have high expectations of success, and let go of those for which they have low expectations. Indulging in the future, dwelling on the reality, or contrasting the reality with the future lead to indiscriminate goal pursuit. We developed a content analytic measure to observe spontaneous mental contrasting in people writing about an important wish (Study 1). Just like induced mental contrasting, spontaneous mental contrasting predicted selective goal pursuit measured by self-reported performance (Study 2) and observed performance (Study 3). The developed coding scheme opens the way to investigating situation, person, and cultural predictors of spontaneous mental contrasting.
AB - Mental contrasting a desired future with reality is a self-regulation strategy that fosters selective goal pursuit; people pursue goals for which they have high expectations of success, and let go of those for which they have low expectations. Indulging in the future, dwelling on the reality, or contrasting the reality with the future lead to indiscriminate goal pursuit. We developed a content analytic measure to observe spontaneous mental contrasting in people writing about an important wish (Study 1). Just like induced mental contrasting, spontaneous mental contrasting predicted selective goal pursuit measured by self-reported performance (Study 2) and observed performance (Study 3). The developed coding scheme opens the way to investigating situation, person, and cultural predictors of spontaneous mental contrasting.
KW - content analysis
KW - expectations
KW - goal pursuit
KW - mental contrasting
KW - performance
KW - Psychology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84881231275&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/c74f5ad7-ddfd-322c-81b1-d321d5ae1bb6/
U2 - 10.1177/0146167213492428
DO - 10.1177/0146167213492428
M3 - Journal articles
AN - SCOPUS:84881231275
VL - 39
SP - 1240
EP - 1254
JO - Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
JF - Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
SN - 0146-1672
IS - 9
ER -