Positive fantasies predict low academic achievement in disadvantaged students

Motivational communication skills to improve motivation and adherence in cardiovascular disease prevention: A narrative review

Lifestyle optimization is one of the most essential components of cardiovascular disease prevention. Motivational counseling provided by health care professionals could promote lifestyle modification. The purpose of the review is to identify possible evidence-based psychological principles that may be applicable to motivational counseling in the prevention of cardiovascular disease. These motivational communication skills promote behavioral change, improved motivation and adherence to cardiovascular disease prevention. A personal collection of the relevant publications. The review identified and summarized the previous evidence of implementation intentions, mental contrasting, placebo effect and nocebo effects and identity-based regulations in behavior change interventions and proposed their potential application in cardiovascular disease prevention. However, it is challenging to provide real support in sustainable CVD-risk reduction and encourage patients to implement lifestyle changes, while avoiding being unnecessarily judgmental, disrespectful of autonomy, or engaging patients in burdensome efforts that have little or no effect on the long run. Motivational communication skills have a great potential for effectuating sustainable lifestyle changes that reduce CVD-related risks, but it is also surrounded by ethical issues that should be appropriately addressed in practice. It is key to realize that motivational communication is nothing like an algorithm that is likely to bring about sustainable lifestyle change, but a battery of interventions that requires specific expertise and long term joint efforts of patients and their team of caregivers.

A systematic review of the impact of future-oriented thinking on academic outcomes

Future-oriented thought is a broad construct that characterize the ability to generate mental representations of the future and project oneself into a variety of hypothetical states. It is well established that the degree to which one is focused more on the past, present, or future has a variety of implications on psychological functioning. This study focuses on the relationship between future-oriented thought and academic performance of students. To bridge this gap, we conducted the first systematic review investigating the benefit of future-oriented thought on promoting positive outcomes in academic settings. Our systematic review comprised 21 studies (k = 21). Results identified a clear relationship between future-oriented thought and positive outcomes in academic settings. Furthermore, our systematic review reveals important relationships between future-oriented thought and academic engagement, as well as future-oriented thought and academic performance. Our findings suggest that those who are more future-oriented demonstrate higher levels of academic engagement compared to those who were less future-oriented. Our findings suggest that probing and guiding students toward a future goal may increase their academic engagement and performance.

A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Mental Contrasting With Implementation Intentions on Goal Attainment

Mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII) is a self-regulation strategy that enhances goal attainment. This meta-analysis evaluated the efficacy of MCII for goal attainment and explored potential moderators. A total of 21 empirical studies with 24 independent effect sizes (15,907 participants) were included in the analysis. Results showed that MCII to be effective for goal attainment with a small to medium effect size (g = 0.336). The effect was mainly moderated by intervention style. Specifically, studies with interventions based on interactions between participants and experimenters (g = 0.465) had stronger effects than studies with interventions based on interactions between participants and documents (g = 0.277). The results revealed that MCII is a brief and effective strategy for goal attainment with a small to moderate effect; however, because of some publication bias, the actual effect sizes may be smaller. Due to small number of studies in this meta-analysis, additional studies are needed to determine the role of moderator variables.

Letters to our Future Selves? High-Powered Replication Attempts Question Effects on Future Orientation, Delinquent Decisions, and Risky Investments

Enhancing people's future orientation, in particular continuity with their future selves, has been proposed as promising to mitigate self-control–related problem behavior. In two pre-registered, direct replication studies, we tested a subtle manipulation, that is, writing a letter to one's future self, in order to reduce delinquent decisions (van Gelder et al., 2013, Study 1) and risky investments (Monroe et al., 2017, Study 1). With samples of n = 314 and n = 463, which is 2.5 times the original studies' sample sizes, the results suggested that the expected effects are either non-existent or smaller than originally reported, and/or dependent on factors not examined. Vividness of the future self was successfully manipulated in Study 2, but manipulation checks overall indicated that the letter task is not reliable to alter future orientation. We discuss ideas to integrate self-affirmation approaches and to test less subtle manipulations in samples with substantial, myopia-related self-control deficits.

Positive fantasies and negative emotions in soccer fans

Positive thinking is often assumed to foster effort and success. Research has shown, however, that positive thinking in the form of fantasies about achieving an idealised future predicts less (not more) effort and success and more (not less) depressive symptoms over time. This relationship was mediated by people having invested little effort and achieved little success. Here, we ask a different question. We investigate the emotional consequences of positive fantasies about futures that people cannot act on. Specifically, we analyse these consequences when the future fantasies fail to come true (one's favourite soccer team loses). Study 1 provided correlational evidence. The more positively soccer fans fantasised about their favourite team winning an upcoming match, the stronger were their negative emotions when their team lost. That is, the more sad, disappointed, and frustrated they felt. Study 2 provided experimental evidence. Soccer fans who were led to fantasise positively about their team winning an upcoming match reported feeling stronger negative emotions after their team lost than those who were led to fantasise negatively. Positive fantasies were not related to how positive participants felt after their team won (joy, happiness, relief). We discuss theoretical and applied implications for emotion regulation in everyday life.

Negative Reflections About Positive Psychology: On Constraining the Field to a Focus on Happiness and Personal Achievement

“Positive” psychology has gained a dominant voice within and outside the field of psychology. Although critiques of this perspective have been rendered, including by humanistic psychologists, psychology scholars have offered minimum space for critical reflections of this movement in contrast to its critiques existing inside and outside the academia in other fields. Therefore, this contribution seeks to explicate emerging systematic critiques of positive psychology by scholars and practitioners from within mental health fields as well as from philosophy, medicine, education, business, and cultural studies and to highlight sociocultural discussions of positive movement by the culture critics. Last, we offer reflections on positive psychology as immigrant professionals from non-Western backgrounds with an emphasis on existential and humanities-based perspectives. We also highlight that the tenets and experiments based on “positive” psychological practices may have especially detrimental effect on marginalized individuals and communities. This contribution seeks to invite a critical dialogue in the field regarding positive psychology within and outside humanistic psychology and psychology in general.

Functions of Utopia: How Utopian Thinking Motivates Societal Engagement

Images of ideal societies, utopias, are all around us; yet, little is known of how utopian visions affect ordinary people's engagement with their societies. As goals for society, utopias may elicit processes of collective self-regulation, in which citizens are critical of, or take action to change, the societies they live in. In three studies, we investigated the psychological function of utopian thinking. In Study 1, measured utopianism was correlated with the activation of three utopian functions: change, critique, and compensation. In Study 2, primed utopian thinking consistently enhanced change and criticism intentions. Study 3 also provided evidence that mental contrasting-first imagining a utopian vision and then mentally contrasting the current society to this vision-underlies the facilitative effect of utopian thinking on societal engagement.

The Roles of Racial Discrimination, Cultural Mistrust, and Gender in Latina/o Youth's School Attitudes and Academic Achievement

Gender gaps in achievement are particularly pronounced among Latina/os, who are among the population most affected by the academic achievement gap. This study examined the roles of racial discrimination, cultural mistrust, and economic value of education in the academic achievement of urban, low-income Latina/o adolescents. Participants were 346 high school students. Structural equation modeling revealed that the model of associations was a better fit for male students than for female students. Cultural mistrust mediated the relationship between racial discrimination and values of education, and perceived limitations of education predicted lower attendance rates for male students but not for female students. Implications for future research and interventions are discussed.

The Motivating Power of Visionary Images: Effects on Motivation, Affect, and Behavior

OBJECTIVE

Visionary images are identity-relevant, picture-like mental representations of a desirable and attainable future appearing regularly in a person's stream of thought. Prior research indicates that both mental and real images provide access to implicit motives. We therefore proposed that visionary images motivate people by arousing their implicit motives and tested this hypothesis in two experimental studies.

METHOD

We used guided visualizations to administer motive-domain-specific visionary images (Study 1: achievement and neutral, M_age  = 24.4, 51 participants, 34 women; Study 2: affiliation and power, M_age  = 24.01, 51 participants, 28 women) to arouse the respective implicit motive. Motivation was measured via residual changes in affective (i.e., changes in affective arousal), behavioral (i.e., performance on a concentration task, behavioral choices in a prisoner's dilemma), and mental (i.e., motive imagery in the Picture Story Exercise) indicators of motivation.

RESULTS

The results largely confirmed our hypothesis. Visionary images increased motivation in the targeted domain. Some effects were moderated by participants' implicit motives.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings underscore the role of implicit motives in understanding the motivational effectiveness of visionary images.

Pragmatic Prospection: How and Why People Think about the Future

In the present, the past is more knowable than the future—but people think far more about the future than the past. Both facts derive from the principle that the future can be changed whereas the past cannot. Our theory of pragmatic prospection holds that people think about the future so as to guide actions to bring about desirable outcomes. It proposes that thoughts about the future begin by imagining what one wants to happen, which is thus initially optimistic. A second stage of such prospective thinking maps out how to bring that about, and this stage is marked by consideration of obstacles, requisite steps, and other potential problems, and so it tends toward cautious realism and even pessimism. Pragmatic prospection presents a form of teleology, in which brains can anticipate possible future events and use those cognitions to guide behavior. Toward that end, it invokes meaning, consistent with evidence that thinking about the future is highly meaningful. Prospection often has narrative structure, involving a series of events in a temporal sequence linked together by meaning. Emotion is useful for evaluating different simulations of possible future events and plans. Prospection is socially learned and rests on socially constructed scaffolding for the future (e.g., future dates). Planning is perhaps the most common form of prospection, and it exemplifies all aspects of our theory (including pragmatic utility, meaning, teleological and narrative structure, and sociality). Bracing for bad news and defensive pessimism are strategies that inspire adaptive responses to feared outcomes.

Pleasure Now, Pain Later: Positive Fantasies About the Future Predict Symptoms of Depression

Though common sense suggests that positive thinking shelters people from depression, the four studies reported here showed that this intuition needs to be qualified: Positive thinking in the form of fantasies about the future did indeed relate to decreased symptoms of depression when measured concurrently; however, positive fantasies predicted more depressive symptoms when measured longitudinally. The pattern of results was observed for different indicators of fantasies and depression, in adults and in schoolchildren, and for periods of up to 7 months (Studies 1-4). In college students, low academic success partially mediated the predictive relation between positive fantasies and symptoms of depression (Study 4). Results add to existing research on the problematic effects of positive fantasies on performance by suggesting that indulging in positive fantasies predicts problems in mental health.

Social Daydreaming and Adjustment: An Experience-Sampling Study of Socio-Emotional Adaptation During a Life Transition

Estimates suggest that up to half of waking life is spent daydreaming; that is, engaged in thought that is independent of, and unrelated to, one’s current task. Emerging research indicates that daydreams are predominately social suggesting that daydreams may serve socio-emotional functions. Here we explore the functional role of social daydreaming for socio-emotional adjustment during an important and stressful life transition (the transition to university) using experience-sampling with 103 participants over 28 days. Over time, social daydreams increased in their positive characteristics and positive emotional outcomes; specifically, participants reported that their daydreams made them feel more socially connected and less lonely, and that the content of their daydreams became less fanciful and involved higher quality relationships. These characteristics then predicted less loneliness at the end of the study, which, in turn was associated with greater social adaptation to university. Feelings of connection resulting from social daydreams were also associated with less emotional inertia in participants who reported being less socially adapted to university. Findings indicate that social daydreaming is functional for promoting socio-emotional adjustment to an important life event. We highlight the need to consider the social content of stimulus-independent cognitions, their characteristics, and patterns of change, to specify how social thoughts enable socio-emotional adaptation.

Management lore continues alive and well in the organizational sciences

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper was to identify examples of management lore currently in the organizational sciences.

Design/methodology/approach

– The authors deliberated and developed a series of examples of management lore in the organizational sciences and surveyed management practitioners concerning their beliefs in the lore hypothesized.

Findings

– Pervasive beliefs that conflict with academic research exist in management practices. Although many of these ideas are commonly accepted as immutable facts, they may be based upon faulty logic, insufficient understanding of academic research, anecdotal evidence and an overdependence upon common sense. Buckley and Eder (1988) called these as examples of management lore. In this conceptual paper, we identify and discuss 12 examples of management lore that persist in day-to-day management practices. Topics we explore include personality, emotional intelligence, teams, compensation, goals, performance, work ethic, creativity and organizational citizenship behaviors.

Originality/value

– A number of areas in which academic research gainsays what we believe to be an immutable fact.

Positive thinking about the future in newspaper reports and presidential addresses predicts economic downturn

Previous research has shown that positive thinking, in the form of fantasies about an idealized future, predicts low effort and poor performance. In the studies reported here, we used computerized content analysis of historical documents to investigate the relation between positive thinking about the future and economic development. During the financial crisis from 2007 to 2009, the more weekly newspaper articles in the economy page of USA Today contained positive thinking about the future, the more the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined in the subsequent week and 1 month later. In addition, between the New Deal era and the present time, the more presidential inaugural addresses contained positive thinking about the future, the more the gross domestic product and the employment rate declined in the presidents' subsequent tenures. These counterintuitive findings may help reveal the psychological processes that contribute to an economic crisis.

Wishful Information Preference

When pursuing set goals or intentions, people prefer to acquire information about the pros rather than the cons of their goal pursuit. Little is known about information preferences at earlier stages, when people are not yet serious about pursuing a given future. In the present three studies, positive fantasies that depicted an idealized desired future—compared with fantasies that questioned whether the future would be so ideal—created a preference for pros over cons, just like set goals or intentions have been shown to do. Positive fantasies created a stronger preference for pros versus cons when people were not serious about pursuing an imagined future or had just foregone an opportunity to do so. Results suggest that before people are engaged in serious pursuits, positive fantasies spur the selective acquisition of pro information, which may lead to poor decisions even if the acquired information is carefully deliberated on later.