Seeing future success: does imagery perspective influence achievement motivation?
Imagining future success can sometimes enhance people's motivation to achieve it. This article examines a phenomenological aspect of positive mental imagery--the visual perspective adopted--that may moderate its motivational impact. The authors hypothesize that people feel more motivated to succeed on a future task when they visualize its successful completion from a third-person rather than a first-person perspective. Actions viewed from the third-person perspective are generally construed at a relatively high level of abstraction--in a manner that highlights their larger meaning and significance--which should heighten their motivational impact. Three studies in the domain of academic motivation support this reasoning. Students experience a greater increase in achievement motivation when they imagine their successful task completion from a third-rather than a first-person perspective. Moreover, mediational analyses reveal that third-person imagery boosts motivation by prompting students to construe their success abstractly and to perceive it as important.
Vasquez
Noelia A
NA
Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Canada. noeliav@yorku.ca
Buehler
Roger
R
D000124:Achievement; D000328:Adult; D002170:Canada; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D019018:Imagery, Psychotherapy; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014495:Universities