Mental Contrasting Connects Desired and Undesired Futures with Reality to Initiate Energization and Instrumental Behavior

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Gabriele Oettingen
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: from 2011 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 191151149

• Final Report Year: 2018

Final Report Abstract

The first line of research illustrates one mechanism by which mental contrasting affects energization and performance. Paired with high (vs. low) expectations of success, mental contrasting establishes a negative implicit evaluation of the obstacle of reality. Our results suggest that this implicit evaluation subsequently predicts mobilized energy that enables people to commit to their desired future and successfully attain it. Those results are relevant for various wishes, such as improving interpersonal relationships, excelling in academic tests, or improving one’s eating habits. The second line of research shows that mental contrasting helps people let go of their counterfactual past and leads them to actively engage in their present life. Specifically, mental contrasting of positive fantasies about a counterfactual past led people to let go of their counterfactual past and it attenuated negative counterfactual emotions. Similar to mental contrasting of future fantasies, mental contrasting of counterfactual fantasies affects people’s implicit cognition (i.e., implicit attitudes towards current reality). Further, it affects people’s levels of energization regarding their present life. Finally, we showed in three studies that mental contrasting of counterfactual fantasies led people to actively engage in their present life, specifically, to exert effort and successfully perform in the interpersonal domain, the professional domain. and the academic domain. The results suggest that mental contrasting can help people let go of their counterfactual past and actively engage and succeed in their present life.

Publications

• (2015, May). Mental contrasting: Effects on the implicit evaluation of the reality that impedes goal attainment. 27th Annual Convention of the Association for Psychological Science. New York, NY
  Wittleder, S., Kappes, A., & Oettingen, G.
  
• (2016, May). Managing obstacles in goal pursuit: Mental contrasting changes implicit evaluations of the reality. Poster presented at the meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, Chicago
  Wittleder, S., Kappes, A., Oettingen, G.
  
• (2016, May). Mental contrasting of counterfactual fantasies attenuates regret and resentment. Association for Psychological Science 28th Annual Convention, Chicago, USA
  Krott, N. R., & Oettingen, G.
  
• (2016, September). Mental contrasting of counterfactual fantasies attenuates regret and resentment. 50th Conference of the German Society for Psychology, Leipzig, Germany
  Krott, N. R., & Oettingen, G.
  
• (2017). Mental contrasting of counterfactual fantasies attenuates disappointment, regret, and resentment. Motivation & Emotion, 42, 17-36
  Krott, N. R., & Oettingen, G.
  
• (2017). Mental contrasting of counterfactual fantasies engages people in their present life. Motivation Science, 4, 137-157
  Krott, N. R., & Oettingen, G.
  
• (2017, July). Mental contrasting of counterfactual fantasies engages people in their present life. 18th General Meeting of the European Association of Social Psychology, Granada, Spain
  Krott, N. R., & Oettingen, G.
  
• (2017, March). How to turn counterfactual fantasies into energy and effort: Mental contrasting of the positive past with the impeding reality. 2nd Biennial International Convention of Psychological Science, Vienna, Austria
  Krott, N. R., & Oettingen, G.