A trade-off model of intentional thinking for pleasure.

We investigated intentional thinking for pleasure, defined as the deliberate attempt to have pleasant thoughts while disengaged from the external world. We propose a Trade-Off model that explains when and why thinking for pleasure is enjoyable: People focus on personally meaningful thoughts when thinking for pleasure (especially when prompted to do so), which increases their enjoyment, but they find it difficult to concentrate on their thoughts, which decreases their enjoyment. Thus, the net enjoyment of thinking for pleasure is a trade-off between its benefits (personal meaningfulness) and costs (difficulty concentrating). To test the model, we compared intentional thinking for pleasure to four alternate activities in three studies. Thinking for pleasure was more enjoyable than undirected thinking (Study 1) and planning (Study 3), because it was more meaningful than these activities while requiring a similar level of concentration. Thinking for pleasure was just as enjoyable as playing a video game (Study 2) or unprompted idle time activities (Study 3), but for different reasons: It was more meaningful than these activities, but required more concentration. We discuss the implications of these findings for what people might choose to do during idle times. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

When the going gets tough, the committed get going: Preexisting goal commitment determines the consequences of experiencing regulatory nonfit.

A body of empirical research shows that pursuing goals via means that do not fit (vs. do fit) one's regulatory mode creates resistance that disrupts motivation. However, other empirical research shows that resistance sometimes motivates people to work harder toward their goals, suggesting that regulatory nonfit (vs. fit) might be more motivating at times. The current research tests this possibility while also demonstrating how an integral dimension of a goal-a person's preexisting commitment to it-determines when regulatory nonfit (vs. fit) is more motivating. Three initial studies provide evidence that, among people low in preexisting commitment, regulatory nonfit (vs. fit) demotivates people: goal value and intentions to pursue the goal become lower with nonfit (vs. fit). However, among people high in preexisting commitment, regulatory nonfit (vs. fit) motivates people: goal value and intentions to pursue the goal become higher with nonfit (vs. fit). Three additional studies document an experimental causal chain providing evidence for underlying mechanisms: regulatory nonfit (vs. fit) creates an experience of resistance that people need to interpret, and preexisting commitment shifts whether people interpret resistance as a negative or positive motivational signal. Finally, two studies demonstrate how naturally occurring variance in preexisting goal commitment moderates the effect of experiencing regulatory nonfit (vs. fit) on people's subsequent goal-directed behavior. By identifying an integral dimension of goals that can reverse the motivational effects of regulatory nonfit, the present research connects with other work documenting the importance of mindsets about resistance, and suggests novel implications for motivating desired behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

I can see myself enjoying that: Using imagery perspective to circumvent bias in self-perceptions of interest.

People experience life satisfaction when pursuing activities that genuinely interest them. Unfortunately, cultural stereotypes (e.g., "science is not for girls") and preexisting self-beliefs can bias people's memories, thereby hindering their ability to identify the domains that they actually experience as interesting. The current experiments tested a novel method for circumventing this problem by manipulating visual imagery perspective as people recalled their experiences. Four experiments measured (or manipulated) participants' actual experience of interest as they completed a task; the experiments also measured (or manipulated) participants' self-beliefs about their interest in the domain. The experiments then manipulated imagery perspective as participants recalled their interest in the task. Prior research suggests that imagery from an actor's first-person perspective facilitates a bottom-up processing style, whereas imagery from an external third-person facilitates a top-down processing style (Libby & Eibach, 2011). Consistent with this account, across all 4 experiments, first-person imagery (vs. third-person) caused people's recall to be less biased by the top-down influence of their self-beliefs and better aligned with their past experienced interest. The final experiment demonstrated downstream consequences of these effects on female undergraduates' intentions to pursue future activities in a domain (STEM) that negative stereotypes typically might dissuade them from pursuing. Thus, the present results suggest that first-person imagery can be a useful tool to reduce the influence of biased self-beliefs, while increasing sensitivity to past bottom-up experiences during recall. Further, these results hold practical implications for reducing psychological barriers that can keep underrepresented individuals from pursuing interests in counterstereotypical domains. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Does the future look bright? Processing style determines the impact of valence weighting biases and self-beliefs on expectations.

People regularly form expectations about their future, and whether those expectations are positive or negative can have important consequences. So, what determines the valence of people's expectations? Research seeking to answer this question by using an individual-differences approach has established that trait biases in optimistic/pessimistic self-beliefs and, more recently, trait biases in behavioral tendencies to weight one's past positive versus negative experiences more heavily each predict the valence of people's typical expectations. However, these two biases do not correlate, suggesting limits on a purely individual-differences approach to predicting people's expectations. We hypothesize that, because these two biases appear to operate via distinct processes (with self-beliefs operating top-down and valence weighting bias operating bottom-up), to predict a person's expectations on a given occasion, it is also critical to consider situational factors influencing processing style. To test this hypothesis, we investigated how an integral part of future thinking that influences processing style-mental imagery-determines each bias's influence. Two experiments measured valence weighting biases and optimistic/pessimistic self-beliefs, then manipulated whether participants formed expectations using their own first-person visual perspective (which facilitates bottom-up processes) or an external third-person visual perspective (which facilitates top-down processes). Expectations corresponded more with valence weighting biases from the first-person (vs. third-person) but more with self-beliefs from the third-person (vs. first-person). Two additional experiments manipulated valence weighting bias, demonstrating its causal role in shaping expectations (and behaviors) with first-person, but not third-person, imagery. These results suggest the two biases operate via distinct processes, holding implications for interventions to increase optimism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Considering Roads Taken and Not Taken: How Psychological Distance Influences the Framing of Choice Events.

After people make choices, they can frame the choice event in terms of what they chose, or in terms of what they did not choose. The current research proposes psychological distance as one factor influencing this framing and suggests implications. Three experiments manipulated dimensions of distance to demonstrate people's greater tendency to frame choice events in terms of chosen options at greater psychological distances. Additional findings demonstrate that these effects occur regardless of whether the decision turned out well or poorly. In a final experiment, framing a decision in terms of choosing (versus not choosing) a task made people more likely to believe their choice reflected their liking for the chosen task, which led to more favorable expectations for it. The discussion focuses on possible implications of these findings for understanding prior work on self-other differences in decision making, motivations for past decisions, reactions to decision outcomes, and counterfactual thinking.

Changing visual perspective changes processing style: A distinct pathway by which imagery guides cognition.

Action images can be depicted either from the actor's first-person or an observer's third-person visual perspective. This research demonstrates that visual perspective of action imagery influences the extent to which people process actions abstractly. Two experiments presented photographs of everyday actions, manipulating their visual perspective (first-person vs. third-person), holding constant the scope and objects depicted. Subsequently, participants interpreted actions unrelated to the images. Across both experiments, viewing third-person (vs. first-person) photographs caused participants to construe the unrelated actions more abstractly. This carryover effect demonstrates a shift in processing style, sheds light on an underlying mechanism of perspective effects, and suggests that imagery is a more versatile cognitive tool than traditionally assumed.

Using imagery perspective to access two distinct forms of self-knowledge: associative evaluations versus propositional self-beliefs.

When mentally simulating life events, people may visualize them from either an actor's 1st-person or observer's 3rd-person visual perspective. Two experiments demonstrated that visual perspective differentially determines reliance on 2 distinct forms of self-knowledge: associative evaluations of the simulated environment and propositional self-beliefs about relevant values and preferences. Implicit measures indexed associative evaluations of environmental stimuli (political candidates, outgroups); explicit measures indexed propositional self-beliefs about relevant personal values or preferences. A separate session manipulated participants' visual perspective for mentally simulating a pertinent event (voting, interracial interaction) as they forecasted their behavior or feelings if that event occurred. Forecasts corresponded more closely with associative evaluations from the 1st-person than 3rd-person perspective but more closely with propositional self-beliefs from the 3rd-person than 1st-person. Results have practical implications for channeling the power of mental simulation to desired ends and theoretical implications for understanding the pathways by which imagery and mental simulation shape cognition.

Changing beliefs and behavior through experience-taking.

The present research introduces the concept of experience-taking-the imaginative process of spontaneously assuming the identity of a character in a narrative and simulating that character's thoughts, emotions, behaviors, goals, and traits as if they were one's own. Six studies investigated the degree to which particular psychological states and features of narratives cause individuals, without instruction, to engage in experience-taking and investigated how the merger between self and other that occurs during experience-taking produces changes in self-judgments, attitudes, and behavior that align with the character's. Results from Studies 1-3 showed that being in a reduced state of self-concept accessibility while reading a brief fictional work increased-and being in a heightened state of self-concept accessibility decreased-participants' levels of experience-taking and subsequent incorporation of a character's personality trait into their self-concepts. Study 4 revealed that a first-person narrative depicting an ingroup character elicited the highest levels of experience-taking and produced the greatest change in participants' behavior, compared with versions of the narrative written in 3rd-person voice and/or depicting an outgroup protagonist. The final 2 studies demonstrated that whereas revealing a character's outgroup membership as a homosexual or African American early in a narrative inhibited experience-taking, delaying the revelation of the character's outgroup identity until later in the story produced higher levels of experience-taking, lower levels of stereotype application in participants' evaluation of the character, and more favorable attitudes toward the character's group. The implications of these findings in relation to perspective-taking, self-other overlap, and prime-to-behavior effects are discussed.

Seeing failure in your life: Imagery perspective determines whether self-esteem shapes reactions to recalled and imagined failure.

The present research reveals that when it comes to recalling and imagining failure in one's life, changing how one looks at the event can change its impact on well-being; however, the nature of the effect depends on an aspect of one's self-concept, namely, self-esteem. Five studies measured or manipulated the visual perspective (internal first-person vs. external third-person) individuals used to mentally image recalled or imagined personal failures. It has been proposed that imagery perspective determines whether people's reactions to an event are shaped bottom-up by concrete features of the event (first-person) or top-down by their self-concept (third-person; L. K. Libby & R. P. Eibach, 2011b). Evidence suggests that differences in the self-concepts of individuals with low and high self-esteem (LSEs and HSEs) are responsible for self-esteem differences in reaction to failure, leading LSEs to have more negative thoughts and feelings about themselves (e.g., M. H. Kernis, J. Brockner, & B. S. Frankel, 1989). Thus, the authors predicted, and found, that low self-esteem was associated with greater overgeneralization--operationalized as negativity in accessible self-knowledge and feelings of shame--only when participants had pictured failure from the third-person perspective and not from the first-person. Further, picturing failure from the third-person, rather than first-person, perspective, increased shame and the negativity of accessible knowledge among LSEs, whereas it decreased shame among HSEs. Results help to distinguish between different theoretical accounts of how imagery perspective functions and have implications for the study of top-down and bottom-up influences on self-judgment and emotion, as well as for the role of perspective and abstraction in coping.

Self-enhancement or self-coherence? Why people shift visual perspective in mental images of the personal past and future.

It is often assumed, by laypeople and researchers alike, that people shift visual perspective in mental images of life events to maintain a positive self-concept by claiming ownership of desirable events (first-person) and disowning undesirable events (third-person). The present research suggests that people shift perspective not according to the pictured event's desirability but according to whether they focus on the experience of the event (first-person) or on the event's coherence with the self-concept (third-person). This explains why self-change promotes third-person imagery of prechange selves (Studies 1 and 2). And, the same mechanism determines perspective apart from self-change, in both memory and imagination (Studies 3 and 4). By demonstrating that people shift perspective according to whether they focus on the experience of an event or its self-concept coherence, these results suggest how perspective may function more broadly in social cognition, and specifically in the construction and maintenance of the temporally extended self.

Seeing meaning in action: a bidirectional link between visual perspective and action identification level.

Actions do not have inherent meaning but rather can be interpreted in many ways. The interpretation a person adopts has important effects on a range of higher order cognitive processes. One dimension on which interpretations can vary is the extent to which actions are identified abstractly--in relation to broader goals, personal characteristics, or consequences--versus concretely, in terms of component processes. The present research investigated how visual perspective (own 1st-person vs. observer's 3rd-person) in action imagery is related to action identification level. A series of experiments measured and manipulated visual perspective in mental and photographic images to test the connection with action identification level. Results revealed a bidirectional causal relationship linking 3rd-person images and abstract action identifications. These findings highlight the functional role of visual imagery and have implications for understanding how perspective is involved in action perception at the social, cognitive, and neural levels.

Picture yourself at the polls: visual perspective in mental imagery affects self-perception and behavior.

The present research demonstrates that the visual perspective--own first-person versus observer's third-person--people use to picture themselves engaging in a potential future action affects their self-perceptions and subsequent behavior. On the eve of the 2004 U.S. presidential election, registered voters in Ohio were instructed to use either the first-person or the third-person perspective to picture themselves voting in the election. Picturing voting from the third-person perspective caused subjects to adopt a stronger pro-voting mind-set correspondent with the imagined behavior. Further, this effect on self-perception carried over to behavior, causing subjects who were instructed to picture voting from the third-person perspective to be significantly more likely to vote in the election. These findings extend previous research in autobiographical memory and social judgment linking the observer's perspective with dispositional attributions, and demonstrate the causal role of imagery in determining future behavior.

Here's looking at me: the effect of memory perspective on assessments of personal change.

Five studies manipulated the memory perspective (1st-person vs. 3rd-person) individuals used to visually recall autobiographical events and examined its effects on assessments of personal change. Psychotherapy clients recalled their first treatment (Study 1), and undergraduates recalled past social awkwardness (Study 2). Participants who were induced to recall from the 3rd-person perspective believed, and acted as though (Study 2), they had changed more since the events occurred. Subsequent studies revealed a crucial moderator: Third-person recall produces judgments of greater self-change when people are inclined to look for evidence of change, but lesser self-change when they are inclined to look for evidence of continuity. This pattern emerged when motivation (Studies 1 and 2), goals (Study 3), instructions (Study 4), and self-esteem (Study 5) determined participants' focus on change versus continuity. Results have implications for constructivism in memory and judgment and for the ability to sustain self-improvement efforts.

When change in the self is mistaken for change in the world.

The authors examined whether and when changes in the self lead to mistaken assessments that the world has changed. Survey data revealed that: personal changes in respondents (e.g., parenthood, financial change) were positively correlated with their assessments of various social changes (e.g., crime rates, freedom). Experimental data provided converging evidence. Experimentally induced change in knowledge influenced participants' perceptions of change in an author's writing style from one decade to the next (Study 3). Bringing self-change to participants' attention attenuated their judgments of change in the world when they had sufficient cognitive resources to consider how such self-changes might affect their perceptions (Studies 4-6). Discussion highlights how such misattributions of change contribute to the pervasive belief in societal decline.

Imagery perspective and source monitoring in imagination inflation.

The present experiments suggest that imagery perspective--first person (own) versus third person (observer's)--influences source-monitoring judgments. Imagination inflation (Garry, Manning, Loftus, & Sherman, 1996) occurs when imaginary experience with events is mistaken for real experience. In Experiment 1, the perspective used to visualize real past events depended on memory test wording ("remember doing?" vs. "happened to you?"). Experiment 2 manipulated the perspective used to visually imagine counterfactual events and showed that the effect on imagination inflation depended on memory test wording. Imagination inflation was most likely when memory test wording encouraged participants to visualize real events from the same perspective as they had used to imagine counterfactual ones. Imagination inflation may result not simply from having created imaginary representations of events, but also from having created representations that match the decision criteria used in source monitoring.

Looking back in time: self-concept change affects visual perspective in autobiographical memory.

People who change often report that their old selves seem like "different people." Correlational (Study 1) and experimental (Studies 2 and 3) studies showed that participants tended to use a 3rd-person observer perspective when visualizing memories of actions that conflicted with their current self-concept. A similar pattern emerged when participants imagined performing actions that varied in self-concept compatibility (Study 4). The authors conclude that on-line judgments of an action's self-concept compatibility affect the perspective used for image construction. Study 5 shows applied implications. Use of the 3rd-person perspective when recalling past episodes of overindulgent eating was related to optimism about behaving differently at an upcoming Thanksgiving dinner. The authors discuss the effect of self-concept compatibility on cognitive and emotional reactions to past actions and consider the role of causal attributions in defining the self across time.