1University of Hamburg, Germany.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2014 Feb;40(2):139-52. doi: 10.1177/0146167213507088. Epub 2013 Oct 21.
Mental contrasting a desired future with present reality is a self-regulation strategy that fosters energization in line with a person's expectations of successfully attaining the desired future. We investigated whether physiological energization (measured by systolic blood pressure) elicited by mental contrasting a desired future of solving a given task transfers to effort in an unrelated task. As predicted, mental contrasting a desired future of excelling in an intelligence test (Study 1) and of writing an excellent essay (Study 2) triggered changes in energization that translated into physical effort in squeezing a handgrip (Study 1) and translated into mental effort in writing a get-well letter (Study 2). Results suggest that mental contrasting of solving one task triggers energization that may fuel effort for performing an unrelated task. Implications for intervention research are discussed.
心理对比未来的理想状态与当前的现实情况是一种自我调节策略，可以激发与一个人成功实现理想未来的期望相一致的动力。我们研究了通过心理对比来激发解决给定任务的未来理想状态所产生的生理动力（通过收缩压测量）是否会转移到无关任务的努力中。正如所预测的，心理对比在智力测试中表现出色的未来（研究 1）和写一篇优秀论文的未来（研究 2）引发了动力的变化，这些变化转化为紧握手柄的体力（研究 1）和转化为写一封康复信的心理努力（研究 2）。结果表明，解决一项任务的心理对比会引发动力，而这种动力可能会为执行一项不相关的任务提供动力。还讨论了对干预研究的影响。
