Mental contrasting of a negative future with a positive reality regulates state anxiety

Gunnar Brodersen; Gabriele Oettingen

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01596

Mental contrasting of a negative future with a positive reality regulates state anxiety

Gunnar Brodersen, Gabriele Oettingen

Psychology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Mental contrasting of a desired future with impeding reality is a self-regulatory strategy fostering goal pursuit. However, there is little research on mental contrasting of a negative future with a positive reality. We conducted two experiments, each with four experimental conditions, investigating the effects of mental contrasting a negative future with a positive reality on state anxiety: participants who mentally contrasted a negative future regarding a bacterial epidemic (Study 1, N = 199) or an idiosyncratic negative event (Study 2, N = 206) showed less state anxiety than participants who imagined the negative future only or who reverse contrasted; participants who mentally elaborated on the positive reality also showed less state anxiety. Our findings suggest that mental contrasting of a negative future helps people reduce disproportional anxiety regarding a negative future.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	1596
Journal	Frontiers in Psychology
Volume	8
Issue number	SEP
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01596
State	Published - Sep 20 2017

Keywords

Anxiety
Fantasies
Mental contrasting
Self-regulation
Thinking about the future

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General Psychology

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10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01596

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Mental contrasting of a negative future with a positive reality regulates state anxiety

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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