Mental Contrasting and Transfer of Energization

Mental contrasting a desired future with present reality is a self-regulation strategy that fosters energization in line with a person's expectations of successfully attaining the desired future. we investigated whether physiological energization (measured by systolic blood pressure) elicited by mental contrasting a desired future of solving a given task transfers to effort in an unrelated task. as predicted,mental contrasting a desired future of excelling in an intelligence test (study 1) and of writing an excellent essay (study 2) triggered changes in energization that translated into physical effort in squeezing a handgrip (study 1) and translated into mental effort in writing a get-well letter (study 2). results suggest that mental contrasting of solving one task triggers energization that may fuel effort for performing an unrelated task. implications for intervention research are discussed. © 2013 by the society for personality and social psychology,inc.