Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University.
Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2019 Feb;116(2):193-214. doi: 10.1037/pspa0000136. Epub 2018 Oct 25.
People regularly form expectations about their future, and whether those expectations are positive or negative can have important consequences. So, what determines the valence of people's expectations? Research seeking to answer this question by using an individual-differences approach has established that trait biases in optimistic/pessimistic self-beliefs and, more recently, trait biases in behavioral tendencies to weight one's past positive versus negative experiences more heavily each predict the valence of people's typical expectations. However, these two biases do not correlate, suggesting limits on a purely individual-differences approach to predicting people's expectations. We hypothesize that, because these two biases appear to operate via distinct processes (with self-beliefs operating top-down and valence weighting bias operating bottom-up), to predict a person's expectations on a given occasion, it is also critical to consider situational factors influencing processing style. To test this hypothesis, we investigated how an integral part of future thinking that influences processing style-mental imagery-determines each bias's influence. Two experiments measured valence weighting biases and optimistic/pessimistic self-beliefs, then manipulated whether participants formed expectations using their own first-person visual perspective (which facilitates bottom-up processes) or an external third-person visual perspective (which facilitates top-down processes). Expectations corresponded more with valence weighting biases from the first-person (vs. third-person) but more with self-beliefs from the third-person (vs. first-person). Two additional experiments manipulated valence weighting bias, demonstrating its causal role in shaping expectations (and behaviors) with first-person, but not third-person, imagery. These results suggest the two biases operate via distinct processes, holding implications for interventions to increase optimism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
人们经常对未来形成期望，而这些期望是积极的还是消极的可能会产生重要的后果。那么，是什么决定了人们期望的效价呢？通过采用个体差异方法来研究这个问题的研究已经确立，乐观/悲观的自我信念中的特质偏差，以及最近，对一个人过去的积极经历与消极经历进行更重的权重的行为倾向中的特质偏差，都可以预测人们典型期望的效价。然而，这两个偏差并不相关，这表明仅通过个体差异方法预测人们的期望存在局限性。我们假设，由于这两个偏差似乎通过不同的过程起作用（自我信念自上而下起作用，而效价权重偏差自下而上起作用），因此要在特定情况下预测一个人的期望，考虑影响处理方式的情境因素也很关键。为了检验这一假设，我们研究了影响处理方式的未来思维的一个重要组成部分——心理意象——如何决定每个偏差的影响。两项实验分别测量了效价权重偏差和乐观/悲观的自我信念，然后操纵参与者是使用自己的第一人称视觉视角（促进自下而上的过程）还是使用第三人称视觉视角（促进自上而下的过程）来形成期望。从第一人称（而非第三人称）视角形成的期望与效价权重偏差更相符，而从第三人称（而非第一人称）视角形成的期望与自我信念更相符。另外两项实验则操纵了效价权重偏差，证明了它在使用第一人称而不是第三人称意象塑造期望（和行为）方面的因果作用。这些结果表明，这两个偏差通过不同的过程起作用，这对提高乐观主义的干预措施具有重要意义。（APA，2019 年，所有权利保留）。
