Mental simulation of future possibilities: Preparing for action or protecting the self?

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a dual-motive theory of how future possibilities are typically simulated and evaluated. According to this framework, people attempt to strike a balance between preparing for action (approach-based expansion) and protecting the self against threat (avoidance-based narrowing), in which the main function of future thinking is to prepare the person for action. As suggestive empirical basis, we review selected findings from psychology and social science – including cognitive sampling of alternative possibilities, prediction, planning, moral judgment, experienced and anticipated emotion, and mental health research. Across these diverse domains, approach-based expansion can lead to agentic optimism, constructing a wide space of positive possibilities to pursue and choose from, whereas avoidance-based narrowing can lead to defensive pessimism, reducing the attentional perspective to a risk-minimizing exit strategy. The overarching goal with proposing this simplified framework is to help organize research on possibility-generation through a motivational lens, focusing on context-dependent changes in the two modes of prospective motivation: approach-based expansion vs. avoidance-based narrowing. Hopefully, the proposed dual-motive framework can serve as a guide for new directions in future research, exploring how alternative possibilities are created, realized, and sometimes neglected in human life.