Department of Psychology, New York University, 6 Washington Place, New York, New York 10003, USA.
Emotion. 2011 Oct;11(5):1206-22. doi: 10.1037/a0023983.
Self-regulation by mentally contrasting a positive future with negative reality leads people to differentiate in their goal commitments: They commit to goals when expectations of success are high and let go when expectations of success are low. On the contrary, when indulging in the positive future or dwelling on negative reality, people fail to consider expectations of success and do not form selective goal commitments (Oettingen, Pak, & Schnetter, 2001). Whereas prior research has examined the effects of experimentally induced mental contrasting, we address sad mood as a contextual influence promoting self-initiated mental contrasting. Across various mood inductions, sad moods--which are associated with problem solving strategies--facilitated self-initiated mental contrasting more than neutral moods (Studies 1, 5) or happy moods (Studies 2, 3, 4, 6). Importantly, mood did not affect the relation between mental contrasting and selective formation of goal commitment (Studies 5, 6). The results suggest that sad moods aid in self-regulation by making people self-initiate goal commitments that are sensitive to their expectations of success.
当成功期望高时，他们会承诺目标，而当成功期望低时，他们会放弃目标。相反，当人们沉迷于积极的未来或沉溺于消极的现实时，他们不会考虑成功的期望，也不会形成有选择性的目标承诺（Oettingen、Pak 和 Schnetter，2001）。虽然之前的研究已经检验了实验诱导的心理对比的效果，但我们将悲伤情绪作为促进自我发起心理对比的情境影响来研究。在各种情绪诱导中，悲伤情绪——与解决问题的策略相关——比中性情绪（研究 1、5）或快乐情绪（研究 2、3、4、6）更能促进自我发起的心理对比。重要的是，情绪并不影响心理对比与选择性目标承诺形成之间的关系（研究 5、6）。研究结果表明，悲伤情绪通过促使人们自我发起对成功期望敏感的目标承诺，从而帮助自我调节。
