Mental contrasting of a dieting wish improves self-reported health behaviour

Johannessen, Kim Berg; Oettingen, Gabriele; Mayer, Doris

doi:10.1080/08870446.2011.626038

Cited by 53 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…For example, teaching mental contrasting (vs. indulging) resulted in more effective time management and easier decision making in health care professionals (Oettingen, Mayer, & Brinkmann, 2010), better academic performance in disadvantaged schoolchildren (A. Gollwitzer, Oettingen, Kirby, Duckworth, & Mayer, 2011) and improved health behavior in dieting students (Johannessen, Oettingen, & Mayer, 2012).…”

Section: Research-article2013mentioning

confidence: 99%

Spontaneous Mental Contrasting and Selective Goal Pursuit

Sevincer

Oettingen

2013

Pers Soc Psychol Bull

101

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Mental contrasting a desired future with reality is a self-regulation strategy that fosters selective goal pursuit; people pursue goals for which they have high expectations of success, and let go of those for which they have low expectations. Indulging in the future, dwelling on the reality, or contrasting the reality with the future lead to indiscriminate goal pursuit. We developed a content analytic measure to observe spontaneous mental contrasting in people writing about an important wish (Study 1). Just like induced mental contrasting, spontaneous mental contrasting predicted selective goal pursuit measured by self-reported performance (Study 2) and observed performance (Study 3). The developed coding scheme opens the way to investigating situation, person, and cultural predictors of spontaneous mental contrasting.

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Section: Research-article2013mentioning

confidence: 99%

Spontaneous Mental Contrasting and Selective Goal Pursuit

Sevincer

Oettingen

2013

Pers Soc Psychol Bull

101

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“…Oettingen et al ( 89 ) found that the mental contrasting intervention caused smokers who wanted to quit to take more immediate action toward quitting than subjects who underwent a control intervention. And for non-addicted subjects, Johannessen et al ( 99 ) found that dieters who performed the mental contrasting procedure were significantly more successful than control subjects at reducing their caloric intake over a 2-week period.…”

Section: Three Stages Of Self-controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Addict in Us all

Dill

Holton

2014

Front. Psychiatry

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In this paper, we contend that the psychology of addiction is similar to the psychology of ordinary, non-addictive temptation in important respects, and explore the ways in which these parallels can illuminate both addiction and ordinary action. The incentive salience account of addiction proposed by Robinson and Berridge (1–3) entails that addictive desires are not in their nature different from many of the desires had by non-addicts; what is different is rather the way that addictive desires are acquired, which in turn affects their strength. We examine these “incentive salience” desires, both in addicts and non-addicts, contrasting them with more cognitive desires. On this account, the self-control challenge faced by addicted agents is not different in kind from that faced by non-addicted agents – though the two may, of course, differ greatly in degree of difficulty. We explore a general model of self-control for both the addict and the non-addict, stressing that self-control may be employed at three different stages, and examining the ways in which it might be strengthened. This helps elucidate a general model of intentional action.

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“…It is, of course, difficult in observational research to disentangle these (Johannessen, Oettingen, & Mayer, 2012), exercise goals (Sheeran et al, 2013), and a variety of goals in a depressed sample (Fritzsche et al, 2016). Dwelling only on the pleasures of attainment or only on the obstacles in its way tended to be counterproductive in leading participants to reach their goals (e.g., Oettingen, 1996), as, for instance, in their teachers' ratings of actual achievement (Oettingen et al, 2001).…”

Section: Facilitating Action Toward Goal-attainmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spontaneous Thought and Goal Pursuit: From Functions such as Planning to Dysfunctions such as Rumination

Klinger¹,

Marchetti

Koster³

2017

Preprint

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Spontaneous thoughts occur by default in the interstices between directed, generally taskoriented thoughts or moments of perceptual scrutiny. Their contents are overwhelmingly related to thinkers' current goals, either directly or indirectly via associative networks, including to past and tentative future goals. They are triggered by ambient goal-related stimuli or segments of own thought. Most spontaneous thought segments are very brief, a matter of seconds, but may be much longer. Their typical brevity generally permits wide variation in content, reflecting the individual's current agenda of goals. Their evocation is accompanied by emotional responses that vary widely in type, valence, and intensity. These properties of the emotional accompaniments probably determine which content area receives priority for thought. Given these properties of thought flow, spontaneous thoughts are highly adaptive as (1) reminders of the individual's larger agenda of goals while occupied with pursuing any one of them, (2) promotion of planning for future goal pursuits, (3) review and deeper understanding of past goalrelated experiences, and (4) development of creative solutions to problems in goal pursuit. In the face of threats to successful pursuit of important goals or the prospect of failure, the same 2 mechanisms may occasion repetitive but unproductive thoughts about the pursuit, the consequences of the failure, or the self, and strong negative emotions steering the train of thought may lead to narrowing of its focus, thus producing rumination. The disposition to ruminate is in part a function of states of negative affect and individual differences such as strength of focus on particular thought themes, momentum of particular emotional states, and neuroticism. Rumination is a common occurrence during low mood or outright depression that accompanies the process of disengaging from goal pursuits that have become unrealistic or overly expensive. The typically reduced interest in alternative goals during this phase further limits the range of thought content and the individual's resources for re-engagement with gratifying goal pursuits. For assessment and clinical purposes, spontaneous thought content can potentially provide information not captured by other procedures. When an individual's spontaneous thoughts are themselves problematic, empirically validated methods for improving the individual's motivational structure provide a likely best treatment strategy.[354 words]

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Mental contrasting of a dieting wish improves self-reported health behaviour

Cited by 53 publications

References 37 publications

Spontaneous Mental Contrasting and Selective Goal Pursuit

Spontaneous Mental Contrasting and Selective Goal Pursuit

The Addict in Us all

Spontaneous Thought and Goal Pursuit: From Functions such as Planning to Dysfunctions such as Rumination

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