Zukunftsdenken und Bewertungsreaktionen

Abstract

The mediating processes of mental contrasting were investigated, in particular, the specific conditions responsible for the origin and occurrence of necessity to act and readiness to act were empirically tested in relation to the fantasy-realization theory (Oettingen, 1997a, 2000). In this theory, three routes to goal setting are described, and the conditions are specified that turn free-floating fantasies about the future into binding goals. The first two routes - merely indulging in positive fantasies about the desired future and merely dwelling on the negative aspects of the impeding reality - do not take into account a person's expectations of success. The third route though - mentally contrasting positive aspects of the aspired to future with negative aspects of contradicting reality - is expectancy-based. Only through mentally contrasting do subjective expectations of success become activated, thus guiding behavior and leading to expectancy-based goal setting. It is assumed that the experienced necessity to act and the resulting readiness to act or readiness to disengage are the main mechanisms initiated by mentally contrasting that turn fantasies into binding goals. In two experiments using an evaluative reaction task in a sequential priming-paradigm, the positive aspects of the aspired to future and the negative aspects of the impeding reality were presented as prime words. It was shown that experienced necessity to act results from a strong evaluative reaction to the positive and negative aspects of the future goal. The experienced necessity to act leads to a readiness to act if the expectations of success are high and expresses itself as a general high activity. If the expectations of success are low, necessity to act results in a readiness to disengage and expresses itself as a general passiveness. In the last part, the results of the experiments are discussed and questions about future research are posed.