The motivating function of thinking about the future: Expectations versus fantasies.

Oettingen, Gabriele; Mayer, Doris

doi:10.1037/0022-3514.83.5.1198

Cited by 388 publications

(424 citation statements)

References 90 publications

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“…This should result in higher levels of effort and persistence. Oettingen and Mayer (2002) provided evidence for this line of reasoning by demonstrating that positive expectations about the future predict high effort and successful performance. Similarly, Foo, Uy, and showed that entrepreneurs show more effort when their temporal focus is oriented towards the future.…”

Section: Business Owners' Age Focus On Opportunities and Venture Grmentioning

confidence: 91%

Focus on opportunities as a mediator of the relationship between business owners' age and venture growth

Gielnik

Zacher

Fresé

2012

Journal of Business Venturing

144

133

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Section: Business Owners' Age Focus On Opportunities and Venture Grmentioning

confidence: 91%

Focus on opportunities as a mediator of the relationship between business owners' age and venture growth

Gielnik

Zacher

Fresé

2012

Journal of Business Venturing

144

133

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“…Finally, although less attention has been paid to the likelihood that people ascribe to the potential occurrence of events, an independent line of research has shown that repeated simulation of the future can boost judgments of perceived likelihood-the more often an event is simulated, the more likely people think the event will take place (47,48). Importantly, the expectation of positive future outcomes has been linked to the successful attainment of significant personal milestones (e.g., acquiring gainful employment and finding a romantic partner) (49)…”

Section: Varieties Of Future Thinkingmentioning

confidence: 99%

A taxonomy of prospection: Introducing an organizational framework for future-oriented cognition

Szpunar

Spreng

Schacter

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

405

318

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Prospection-the ability to represent what might happen in the future-is a broad concept that has been used to characterize a wide variety of future-oriented cognitions, including affective forecasting, prospective memory, temporal discounting, episodic simulation, and autobiographical planning. In this article, we propose a taxonomy of prospection to initiate the important and necessary process of teasing apart the various forms of future thinking that constitute the landscape of prospective cognition. The organizational framework that we propose delineates episodic and semantic forms of four modes of future thinking: simulation, prediction, intention, and planning. We show how this framework can be used to draw attention to the ways in which various modes of future thinking interact with one another, generate new questions about prospective cognition, and illuminate our understanding of disorders of future thinking. We conclude by considering basic cognitive processes that give rise to prospective cognitions, cognitive operations and emotional/motivational states relevant to future-oriented cognition, and the possible role of procedural or motor systems in future-oriented behavior.prospection | simulation | prediction | intention | planning

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“…High (i.e., more difficult) performance standards elicit greater motivation than low standards (Atkinson & Feather, 1966;Brehm & Self, 1989;Heath, Larrick, & Wu, 1999;Oettingen & Mayer, 2002;Taylor & Brown, 1988). Therefore, whenever optimistic predictions act as performance standards, they motivate actions that help to reach these standards, whereas pessimistic predictions undermine one's motivation.…”

Section: Changing Attainment Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Walking the Line between Goals and Temptations: Asymmetric Effects of Counteractive Control

Fishbach¹,

Converse²

2010

Self Control in Society, Mind, and Brain

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A chapter to appear in "self control in brain mind and society", R. R., Hassin, Y. Trope, & K.Ochsner (Eds.), Oxford University Press. 2People rarely desire one thing at a time. Rather, the process of goal pursuit involves constantly prioritizing the many goals that a person wishes to pursue and resolving goal conflicts (e.g., navigating career, leisure, and family activities). In this chapter we focus on a specific type of goal conflict: the self-control dilemma. People face a self-control dilemma whenever the attainment of a high-order goal would come at the expense of a low-order, yet alluring temptation (Ainslie, 1992;Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1994;Loewenstein, 1996;Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999;Rachlin, 2000;Thaler & Shefrin, 1981). For example, a dieter's desire to finish a meal with a sweet dessert may not coincide with his desire to maintain a low-fat diet; a saver's wish to get the new gadget in stores may interfere with her saving plans; and a student's urge to procrastinate may not allow him to complete his assignments on time. Whenever these individuals contemplate the conflicting motives (i.e., goal vs. temptation), they experience a selfcontrol dilemma. In response to self-control dilemmas, people exercise self control to facilitate the attainment of the more important goal (Ainslie, 2001;Baumeister & Vohs, 2004;Gollwitzer & Moskowitz, 1996;Mischel, Shoda, & Rodriguez, 1989;Rachlin, 2000).Goals and temptations are both motivational states but they have different status. Highorder motives (or "goals") serve central interests that are more important in the long-run, and low-order motives (or "temptations") serve peripheral interests that are beneficial in the shortterm. In this view, self-control is a tool for pursuing goals that are given high priority in a person's subjective goal hierarchy. Thus, the processes of goal setting (determining the goal hierarchy) do not require self control. In addition, self control is rarely a goal in itself, in the sense that people do not have a goal to exercise self control. Instead, self control is an 3 instrumental response that improves goal striving when high-order goals are in conflict with loworder temptations.Self-control problems are common and have a long history in human conduct and thought. Self-control problems have been documented and studied in philosophy, religion, and more recently in the social sciences, by researchers in economics (e.g., Becker, 1960;O'Donoghue & Rabin, 2000;Thaler & Shefrin, 1981), political science (e.g., Elster, 1977;Schelling, 1984), and psychology (e.g., Ainslie, 2001;Baumeister & Vohs, 2004;Rachlin, 2000). In light of this rich history and the various perspectives presented in this volume, the purpose of the current chapter is to shed light on the processes of self control from a structural point of view, proposed by counteractive control theory (Fishbach & Trope, 2005; Fishbach & Trope, 2007;Trope & Fishbach, 2000.Counteractive control theory addresses the process by which people proactively counteract the threat that tem...

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The motivating function of thinking about the future: Expectations versus fantasies.

Cited by 388 publications

References 90 publications

Focus on opportunities as a mediator of the relationship between business owners' age and venture growth

Focus on opportunities as a mediator of the relationship between business owners' age and venture growth

A taxonomy of prospection: Introducing an organizational framework for future-oriented cognition

Walking the Line between Goals and Temptations: Asymmetric Effects of Counteractive Control

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