Oettingen Gabriele, Schwörer Bettina
Psychology Department, New York University New York, NY, USA ; Department of Psychology, University of Hamburg Hamburg, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2013 Sep 2;4:562. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00562.
When people engage in mind wandering they drift away from a task toward their inner thoughts and feelings. These thoughts often circle around people's personal futures. One assumed function of mind wandering is that it aids problem solving and planning for the future. We will discuss different forms of mind wandering and their effects on problem solving and behavior change. While solely fantasizing about a desired future leads to poor problem solving and little behavior change, mind wandering in the form of mental contrasting leads to skilled problem solving and substantial behavior change. In mental contrasting, people first envision the desired future and then imagine the obstacles that need to be surmounted to reach said future. Mental contrasting instigates behavior change by modulating the strength of associations between future and reality and between reality and instrumental action. Intervention research shows that mental contrasting can be taught as a cost- and time-effective self-regulation strategy of behavior change. The findings have implications for research on mind wandering, problem solving, and on creating effective interventions of behavior change.
当人们陷入走神状态时，他们会从一项任务中脱离出来，转向自己的内心想法和感受。这些想法常常围绕着人们的个人未来。走神的一个假定功能是它有助于解决问题和规划未来。我们将讨论走神的不同形式及其对解决问题和行为改变的影响。虽然仅仅幻想一个理想的未来会导致解决问题能力欠佳且行为改变很少，但以心理对比形式出现的走神会带来熟练的问题解决能力和显著的行为改变。在心理对比中，人们首先设想理想的未来，然后想象为实现该未来需要克服的障碍。心理对比通过调节未来与现实之间以及现实与工具性行动之间关联的强度来促使行为改变。干预研究表明，心理对比可以作为一种经济高效的行为改变自我调节策略来传授。这些发现对走神、解决问题以及创建有效的行为改变干预措施的研究具有启示意义。
