TY - JOUR
T1 - Strategies of intention formation are re.ected in continuous MEG activity
AU - Achtziger, Anja
AU - Fehr, Thorsten
AU - Oettingen, Gabriele
AU - Gollwitzer, Peter
AU - Rockstroh, Brigitte
N1 - Funding Information:
Correspondence should be addressed to: Anja Achtziger, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstr. 10, D-78464 Konstanz, Germany. E-mail: [email protected] This research was supported by the Interdisciplinary Center for Research on Intentions and Intentionality (University of Konstanz), the Volkswagen-Foundation, and a German Research Foundation grant to Gabriele Oettingen (OE 237/5-1). We also thank Christina Bardong for her help in creating the pretest materials; Anne Häberle, Inge Schweiger Gallo, and Ursula Lommen for assistance in data acquisition; and Herrmann Hinrichs, Michael Scherg, and Thomas Elbert for methodological support.
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - Self-regulation of intention formation is pivotal for achieving behavior change. Fantasy realization theory (Oettingen, 2000) assumes that mentally contrasting a desired positive future with present negative reality turns high expectations of success into strong intentions to realize the desired future, while indulging in the positive future fails to do so. The present study tests the theory's process assumption that mental contrasting is a cognitively demanding, purposeful problem-solving strategy involving working and episodic memory, whereas indulging is a mindless daydreaming strategy involving the free flow of thought, by investigating the neural correlates of the two strategies via continuous magnetoencephalographic (MEG) activity. We observed greater activity during mental contrasting (but not indulging) compared to resting in prefrontal, frontal, parietal, and temporal areas, indicating that mental contrasting involves strong intention formation, working memory, and episodic memory. In addition, heightened activity of occipital areas was observed during mental contrasting compared to resting and indulging, suggesting that mental contrasting, more than indulging and resting, entails purposefully creating mental images. Taken together, these findings indicate that mental contrasting is indeed a purposeful problem-solving strategy based on past performance history, whereas indulging is a purposeless daydreaming strategy that is oblivious to past experiences.
AB - Self-regulation of intention formation is pivotal for achieving behavior change. Fantasy realization theory (Oettingen, 2000) assumes that mentally contrasting a desired positive future with present negative reality turns high expectations of success into strong intentions to realize the desired future, while indulging in the positive future fails to do so. The present study tests the theory's process assumption that mental contrasting is a cognitively demanding, purposeful problem-solving strategy involving working and episodic memory, whereas indulging is a mindless daydreaming strategy involving the free flow of thought, by investigating the neural correlates of the two strategies via continuous magnetoencephalographic (MEG) activity. We observed greater activity during mental contrasting (but not indulging) compared to resting in prefrontal, frontal, parietal, and temporal areas, indicating that mental contrasting involves strong intention formation, working memory, and episodic memory. In addition, heightened activity of occipital areas was observed during mental contrasting compared to resting and indulging, suggesting that mental contrasting, more than indulging and resting, entails purposefully creating mental images. Taken together, these findings indicate that mental contrasting is indeed a purposeful problem-solving strategy based on past performance history, whereas indulging is a purposeless daydreaming strategy that is oblivious to past experiences.
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U2 - 10.1080/17470910801925350
DO - 10.1080/17470910801925350
M3 - Article
C2 - 18633825
AN - SCOPUS:58049215471
SN - 1747-0919
VL - 4
SP - 11
EP - 27
JO - Social Neuroscience
JF - Social Neuroscience
IS - 1
ER -