Gabriele Oettingen
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 127716 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Gabriele Oettingen |
| PRENOMES | Gabriele |
| SOBRENOME | Oettingen |
| ASSINATURA | OETTINGEN G |
| AFILIAÇÕES | New York University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6139-1493 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 72 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 308 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 72 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1988 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 10 |
Mental contrasting prevents a negative future by changing the explicit and implicit meaning of reality.
People often anticipate feared, negative future events but still fail to take preventive action-simply imagining feared outcomes does not reliably prompt behavior change. Research has shown that mental contrasting-imagining a negative future and then reflecting on a positive reality in the present-can translate this fear into action. However, the psychological mechanisms underlying this effect remain unexplored. Across five experiments (two cross…
Let creativity flow
In the mood for flow
280 participants played the computer game Tetris twice while undergoing a randomised between-subjects mood intervention (viewing pictures of either positive, negative, or neutral valence) in between both rounds. Flow was measured via self-reports after each round of Tetris, and linear mixed modelling was employed to test the interaction effect of measurement point and mood intervention on flow. Results confirmed a significant interaction, driven …
Mental contrasting and problem-solving in romantic relationships
We investigated how mental contrasting, a self-regulation strategy, affects relationship problem-solving in 105 mixed-gender couples. Couples were assigned to a mental contrasting (juxtaposing the desired future with the main inner obstacle) or indulging (imagining only the desired future) condition. We reassessed problem resolution 2 weeks later. Actor-partner interdependence model analyses revealed that mental contrasting improved problem resol…
From conflict to control
Woop as a Brief Alcohol Intervention Led by Lay Coaches in College Settings
Heavy drinking is a major public health concern, particularly among young adults who often experience fear of being stigmatized when seeking help for alcohol-related problems. To address drinking concerns outside clinical settings, we tested the feasibility of a novel imagery-based behavior change strategy led by student lay interventionists in a college setting. Participants were adults recruited on a college campus and were randomized to either…
Do spontaneous Self-Regulatory modes of thought vary as a function of personality, demographic background, and goal category
Increasing Extraversion via Intervention
Research suggests that acting more extraverted (outgoing, assertive, and/or energetic) boosts subjective well‐being in the short term for most people; however, some work indicates that acting more extraverted could be aversive for those who are relatively more introverted. To further understand participants' experiences in extraverted behavior interventions, we analyzed free‐response data from a study in which undergraduate participants generated…
Mental contrasting and conflict management in satisfied and unsatisfied romantic relationships
Managing relationship conflict is a difficult yet crucial task for romantic partners. We investigated how imagining a conflict's resolution affects the engagement in resolving that conflict. For instance, people may indulge in positive fantasies about their future, or they may mentally contrast their desired future (successful conflict resolution) with the main inner obstacle (e.g., anger, frustration) in the current reality. In two experiments, …
Capturing Flow Experiences in Everyday Life
In a real-life study using time-based ambulatory assessment, we investigated how to unobtrusively capture within-subject and between-subject variations in flow in everyday life. We compared two observation approaches, momentary states, and coverage, which differed in the reference of flow reports and sampling frequency. Depending on condition, participants ( N = 38) answered either ten or five queries per day that referred to the current state or…
Political ideology and environmentalism impair logical reasoning
People are more likely to think statements are valid when they agree with them than when they do not. We conducted four studies analyzing the interference of self-reported ideologies with performance in a syllogistic reasoning task. Study 1 established the task paradigm and demonstrated that participants’ political ideology affects syllogistic reasoning for syllogisms with political content but not politically irrelevant syllogisms. The preregist…
Mental contrasting of a negative future facilitates Covid-19 preventative behaviors
Objective: The present research examined whether mentally contrasting a negative, feared future (i.e., infection with the Coronavirus) with a still positive reality can promote preventative actions in the context of the pandemic. Design: In two randomized controlled trials, we varied participants’ mode of thought (mental contrasting of a negative future with a positive reality versus fantasizing of a negative future). Study 2 took into account th…
Testing Go/No-Go training effects on implicit evaluations of unhealthy and healthy snack foods
OBJECTIVE: Despite intending to eat healthy foods, people often yield to temptation. In environments rife with unhealthy food options, a positive implicit evaluation of unhealthy foods may inadvertently influence unhealthy choices. This study investigates if and under which conditions implicit evaluations of unhealthy and healthy foods can be influenced by a computer-based Go/No-Go (GNG) training. DESIGN: = 2 years) completed a GNG training with …
Low working memory reduces the use of mental contrasting
Mentally contrasting a desired future with reality is a self-regulation strategy that helps people effectively pursue important personal wishes. People with higher self-regulation skills are more likely to spontaneously use mental contrasting. Because one central cognitive function underlying self-regulation is working memory capacity, we investigated whether people with low rather than high working memory capacity are less likely to spontaneousl…
Updating false beliefs
I’ve been thinkin’ bout you
Political Ideology Outdoes Personal Experience in Predicting Support for Gender Equality
Indices of gender equality provide an inconsistent picture of current gender inequality in countries with relatively high equality. We examined women's and men's subjectively perceived gender inequality and their support for gender equality in the general population and in politicians, respectively, in three countries with relatively high gender equality: the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany (total N = 1,612). In both women's and me…
Boosted by closure! Regulatory focus predicts motivation and task persistence in the aftermath of task‐unrelated goal closure
Past research has found that regulatory closure, that is, successful goal striving regulated either under a promotion or prevention focus, has important consequences in terms of motivational activation and mobilisation of cognitive resources in subsequent tasks, but it mostly investigated motivation in the same or similar tasks to the one for which closure was achieved. Drawing from an energisation‐deactivation hypothesis, we investigated the eff…
The Future of Women in Psychological Science
There has been extensive discussion about gender gaps in representation and career advancement in the sciences. However, psychological science itself has yet to be the focus of discussion or systematic review, despite our field’s investment in questions of equity, status, well-being, gender bias, and gender disparities. In the present article, we consider 10 topics relevant for women’s career advancement in psychological science. We focus on issu…
Motivation and Healthy Aging at Work
The aims of this paper were to review theoretical and empirical research on motivation and healthy aging at work and to outline directions for future research and practical applications in this area. To achieve these goals, we first consider the World Health Organization’s (WHO) definition of healthy aging in the context of paid employment and life-span development in the work domain. Second, we describe contemporary theoretical models and cumula…
Using Theories of Behavior Change to Develop Interventions for Healthy Aging
Healthy aging requires people to adopt and maintain beneficial behaviors in all stages of the life span. Supporting behavior change, including via the motivation to make and maintain those changes, is therefore important for the promotion of healthy aging. The aim of this overview is to introduce theoretical frameworks from the psychology of motivation that lend themselves to the development of effective interventions promoting behavior change co…
Motivation and Healthy Aging
Building on the seminal definition of “healthy aging” by the World Health Organization (WHO, 2015; 2020), we present a model of motivation and healthy aging that is aimed at identifying the central psychological constructs and processes for understanding what older persons value, and how they can attain and maintain these valued aspects of their lives. This model places goals at its center, and then proceeds from motivational processes of goal se…
The Self-Regulation of Healthy Aging
As people age, they experience typical age-graded challenges and opportunities, for example, their own retirement, changes in their social networks, or a decline in health condition. The extent to which people successfully process, respond to, and act on these challenges and opportunities is highly important for their health, at the core of which the WHO sees the possibility of "doing what one has reason to value." In this article, we posit that …
A Controlled Pilot Study of the Wish Outcome Obstacle Plan Strategy for Spouses of Persons With Early-Stage Dementia
WOOP is a promising, brief intervention to improve dementia CPs' well-being that may also positively affect their partners with dementia
Taking Responsibility for Others and Use of Mental Contrasting
Mentally contrasting a desired future with present reality fosters selective goal pursuit: People pursue feasible desired futures and let go from unfeasible ones. We investigated whether people are more inclined to spontaneously use mental contrasting when they feel responsibility. Studies 1 and 2 provided correlational evidence: Employees who felt responsible for completing an important team project (Study 1) and MTurk users who felt and activel…
The motivating function of thinking about the future
Two forms of thinking about the future are distinguished: expectations versus fantasies. Positive expectations (judging a desired future as likely) predicted high effort and successful performance, but the reverse was true for positive fantasies (experiencing one's thoughts and mental images about a desired future positively). Participants were graduates looking for a job (Study 1), students with a crush on a peer of the opposite sex (Study 2), u…
Self-regulation of goal-setting
Fantasy realization theory states that when people contrast their fantasies about a desired future with reflections on present reality, a necessity to act is induced that leads to the activation and use of relevant expectations. Strong goal commitment arises in light of favorable expectations, and weak goal commitment arises in light of unfavorable expectations. To the contrary, when people only fantasize about a desired future or only reflect on…
The Projection of Implicit and Explicit Goals
In 3 studies, the authors analyzed whether projection occurs for both conscious and nonconscious goals. In Experiment 1, participants who were predisposed to hold a learning goal over a performance goal rated others as possessing more of a learning goal. In Experiment 2, participants who were either implicitly primed with or explicitly assigned to have the goal to compete perceived others as striving for competitive goals more than control partic…
When planning is not enough
In two experiments a self‐regulatory strategy combining mental contrasting with the formation of implementation intentions (MCII) was tested for its effectiveness in diminishing unhealthy snacking habits. Study 1 ( N = 51) showed that participants in the MCII condition consumed fewer unhealthy snacks than participants in a control condition who thought about and listed healthy options for snacks. In Study 2 ( N = 59) MCII was more effective than …
Mental contrasting changes the meaning of reality
Mental contrasting instigates goal pursuit by linking obstacles of reality with instrumental behavior
Mindsets and pre-conscious open-mindedness to incidental information
The emergence of goal pursuit
A green paradox
Mental contrasting turns positive feedback on creative potential into successful performance
Positive fantasies about idealized futures sap energy
Nonconscious goal pursuit
Political Ideology Outdoes Personal Experience in Predicting Support for Gender Equality
Indices of gender equality provide an inconsistent picture of current gender inequality in countries with relatively high equality. We examined women's and men's subjectively perceived gender inequality and their support for gender equality in the general population and in politicians, respectively, in three countries with relatively high gender equality: the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany (total N = 1,612). In both women's and me…
Implementation intentions and disengagement from a failing course of action
We explored the consequences of forming implementation intentions that call for action (adjustment of chosen course of action) versus reflection (assessment of the appropriateness of chosen course of action) in situations that activate people's tendency to remain committed to failing courses of action. In Study 1, when negative experiences preceded failure, action and reflection implementation intention participants showed higher rates of disenga…
Making sense of one’s actions in an explanatory vacuum
Children's action-control beliefs about school performance
Causality, agency, and control beliefs in East versus West Berlin children
Beliefs about factors that affect school performance (means-ends or causality beliefs) and about self-efficacy and control (agency and control beliefs) were assessed in 313 East Berlin children (grades 2-6) before unification and 516 West Berlin children shortly after unification. Multiple-group analyses of mean and covariance structures yielded 2 major differences: (a) East Berlin children showed lower agency and control beliefs than West Berlin…
Social Value Orientation Moderates the Effects of Intuition versus Reflection on Responses to Unfair Ultimatum Offers
We investigated whether social value orientation (SVO) moderates the effects of intuitive versus reflective information processing on responses to unfair offers. We measured SVO one week prior to an ultimatum game experiment in which participants had to accept or reject a series of 10 ultimatum offers including very low (unfair) ones. Before making these decisions, participants mentally contrasted their individual goals with the obstacle of ponde…
Children's action^control beliefs about school performance
Using the revised Control, Agency, and Means-ends Interview (T. D. Little, G. Oettingen, & P. B. Baltes, 1995), we compared American children's (Grades 2-6) action-control beliefs about school performance with those of German and Russian children (Los Angeles, n = 657; East Berlin, n = 313; West Berlin, n = 517; Moscow, n = 541). Although we found pronounced cross-setting similarities in the children's everyday causality beliefs about what factor…
Explaining unexplainable food choices
In recent years, psychologists have started to investigate the downstream consequences of nonconsciously activated behaviour (acting in an ‘explanatory vacuum’). Results have shown that when such behaviour is norm‐violating, people experience a need to confabulate reasons for this behaviour. The present paper aims to add more convincing evidence for this assumption. Study 1 addresses this question by replicating Study 2 of Adriaanse, Weijers, De …
Goal projection and giving help
Mental contrasting and conflict management in satisfied and unsatisfied romantic relationships
Managing relationship conflict is a difficult yet crucial task for romantic partners. We investigated how imagining a conflict's resolution affects the engagement in resolving that conflict. For instance, people may indulge in positive fantasies about their future, or they may mentally contrast their desired future (successful conflict resolution) with the main inner obstacle (e.g., anger, frustration) in the current reality. In two experiments, …
The Self-Regulation of Healthy Aging
As people age, they experience typical age-graded challenges and opportunities, for example, their own retirement, changes in their social networks, or a decline in health condition. The extent to which people successfully process, respond to, and act on these challenges and opportunities is highly important for their health, at the core of which the WHO sees the possibility of "doing what one has reason to value." In this article, we posit that …
Incomplete professional identity goals override moral concerns
Self‐regulation of time management
Mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII) has been found to improve self‐regulation across many life domains. The present research investigates whether MCII can benefit time management. In Study 1, we asked students to apply MCII to a pressing academic problem and assessed how they scheduled their time for the upcoming week. MCII participants scheduled more time than control participants who in their thoughts either reflected on si…
Pessimistic explanatory style in the historical record
quot; The habitual way people explain causes (explanatory style) as assessed by questionnaire has been used to predict depression, achievement, and health, with a pessimistic style predicting poor outcomes. Because some individuals whose behavior is of interest cannot take questionnaires, their explanatory style can be assessed by blind, reliable content analysis of verbatim explanations (CAVE) from the historical record. We discuss three example…
Pessimistic explanatory style in the historical record
Pessimism and behavioural signs of depression in East versus West Berlin
Quantified behavioural signs of depression in relation to pessimism across cultures. First, by observing workmen in 1985 East and West Berlin bars, we found more behaviour consistent with depression in East Berliners than in West Berliners. We then measured pessimism in both cultures by assessing explanatory style in newspaper reports of the 1984 Winter Olympic Games. Despite having more Olympic victories to report, East Berlin newspaper accounts…
Causality, agency, and control beliefs in East versus West Berlin children
Beliefs about factors that affect school performance (means-ends or causality beliefs) and about self-efficacy and control (agency and control beliefs) were assessed in 313 East Berlin children (grades 2-6) before unification and 516 West Berlin children shortly after unification. Multiple-group analyses of mean and covariance structures yielded 2 major differences: (a) East Berlin children showed lower agency and control beliefs than West Berlin…
Children's action^control beliefs about school performance
Using the revised Control, Agency, and Means-ends Interview (T. D. Little, G. Oettingen, & P. B. Baltes, 1995), we compared American children's (Grades 2-6) action-control beliefs about school performance with those of German and Russian children (Los Angeles, n = 657; East Berlin, n = 313; West Berlin, n = 517; Moscow, n = 541). Although we found pronounced cross-setting similarities in the children's everyday causality beliefs about what factor…
Children's action-control beliefs about school performance
Culture and Future Thought
Ernst E. Boesch went beyond the limited conceptualization of thinking about the future in terms of expectancy judgments prevalent in empirical psychology during the past 50 years. He explicitly focused on fantasies and analyzed their main source called 'fantasm'. Based on the theory of thinking about the future (Oettingen, 1996, 1997a), it is demonstrated how important it is when predicting motivation and action to differentiate between expectanc…
Self-regulation of goal-setting
Fantasy realization theory states that when people contrast their fantasies about a desired future with reflections on present reality, a necessity to act is induced that leads to the activation and use of relevant expectations. Strong goal commitment arises in light of favorable expectations, and weak goal commitment arises in light of unfavorable expectations. To the contrary, when people only fantasize about a desired future or only reflect on…
The motivating function of thinking about the future
Two forms of thinking about the future are distinguished: expectations versus fantasies. Positive expectations (judging a desired future as likely) predicted high effort and successful performance, but the reverse was true for positive fantasies (experiencing one's thoughts and mental images about a desired future positively). Participants were graduates looking for a job (Study 1), students with a crush on a peer of the opposite sex (Study 2), u…
The Projection of Implicit and Explicit Goals
In 3 studies, the authors analyzed whether projection occurs for both conscious and nonconscious goals. In Experiment 1, participants who were predisposed to hold a learning goal over a performance goal rated others as possessing more of a learning goal. In Experiment 2, participants who were either implicitly primed with or explicitly assigned to have the goal to compete perceived others as striving for competitive goals more than control partic…
Nonconscious goal pursuit
Implementation intentions and disengagement from a failing course of action
We explored the consequences of forming implementation intentions that call for action (adjustment of chosen course of action) versus reflection (assessment of the appropriateness of chosen course of action) in situations that activate people's tendency to remain committed to failing courses of action. In Study 1, when negative experiences preceded failure, action and reflection implementation intention participants showed higher rates of disenga…
Mindsets and pre-conscious open-mindedness to incidental information
Embodied goal pursuit
Daum, Sommerville, and Prinz propose that the interrelation between the symbolic and embodied system needs more research attention. The proposal is based on the observation that human infants start out with embodied processes to understand the actions of others, and that these processes allow them to communicate with other people surprisingly well. What does the symbolic (language) system add to an infant’s communication when it becomes available…
Motivation
8.1 The Goal Concept in the Psychology of Motivation 8.2 Conscious Goal Pursuit 8.3 Unconscious Goal Pursuit 8.4 Summary
When planning is not enough
In two experiments a self‐regulatory strategy combining mental contrasting with the formation of implementation intentions (MCII) was tested for its effectiveness in diminishing unhealthy snacking habits. Study 1 ( N = 51) showed that participants in the MCII condition consumed fewer unhealthy snacks than participants in a control condition who thought about and listed healthy options for snacks. In Study 2 ( N = 59) MCII was more effective than …
Making sense of one’s actions in an explanatory vacuum
Sad mood promotes self-initiated mental contrasting of future and reality
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, & Schnett…
Implicit theories moderate the relation of positive future fantasies to academic outcomes
Positive fantasies about idealized futures sap energy
Future thought and behaviour change
While there is a growing body of research on free thoughts such as fantasies and daydreams, the question of whether and how fantasies lead to effortful action and successful performance has hardly been investigated. The present article will show that, counter to what the popular self-help literature proposes, positive thinking can be detrimental to effort and success if it comes in the form of fantasies (free thoughts and images about the desired…
Positive fantasies predict low academic achievement in disadvantaged students
Unlike other forms of positive thinking (e.g., expectations), research finds that positive fantasies (experiencing one's thoughts and mental images about the future positively) predict low effort and little success in several domains. However, for vocational education students of low socioeconomic status and minority ethnicity, for whom the present environment is especially difficult, perhaps it would be appropriate to indulge in positive fantasi…
Needs instigate positive fantasies of idealized futures
One form that mental time travel takes is fantasies about the future. Research to date has not established when people generate fantasies that depict an imagined future as particularly positive. We identify need state as a variable promoting positive fantasies about relevant stimuli (i.e., those that could address the need). In four studies, people with an aroused need (or with a stronger need) generated more positive fantasies depicting idealize…
Mental contrasting instigates goal pursuit by linking obstacles of reality with instrumental behavior
Mental contrasting turns positive feedback on creative potential into successful performance
Psychology (67 obras) · Social Psychology (57 obras) · Behavioral Health and Interventions (38 obras) · Cognitive psychology (28 obras) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (27 obras) · Social Psychology (24 obras) · Developmental psychology (19 obras) · Goal pursuit (14 obras) · Cognition (13 obras) · Computer Science (13 obras)