好逗的研究。
http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-positive-fantasies-make-your-dreams.html
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
Why positive fantasies make your dreams less likely to come true
It's a trusted tool in the self-help armoury - visualising yourself having achieved your goals, be that weighing less, enjoying the view atop Everest, or walking down the aisle with the girl or boy of your dreams. Trouble is, reams of research shows that indulging in positive fantasies actually makes people's fantasised ambitions less likely to become reality. Why? A new study claims it's because positive fantasies are de-energising.
They "make energy seem unnecessary" say Heather Kappes and Gabriele Oettingen. "By allowing people to consummate a desired future", the researchers say, positive fantasies trigger the relaxation that would normally accompany actual achievement, rather than marshaling the energy needed to obtain it.
The researchers demonstrated this process across four studies. The first was the least convincing and read like a throwback to the 1960s. Women who were asked to fantasise positively about looking and feeling good in high-heeled shoes subsequently demonstrated lower energy, as revealed by their having lowing blood pressure, than did women asked to fantasise more critically about the pros and cons of wearing trendy, high-heeled shoes.
The research improved. In the second study, participants asked to fantasise positively about winning an essay contest subsequently reported feeling less energised than did participants asked to fantasise more negatively about their prospects.
Next, a positive fantasy about the coming week led participants to feel less energised, and when surveyed a week later, they'd achieved fewer of their week's goals, than had control participants who'd originally been asked to day-dream freely about the coming week.
Finally, Kappes and Oettingen highlighted the role of context, showing that positive fantasies about a pressing need are particularly de-energising. This elaborate study involved asking student participants to refrain from food and water for several hours, and then having some of them eat crackers (ostensibly as part of a taste test). For these super-thirsty participants it was a positive fantasy about a tall glass of icy water, not a fantasy about exam success, that led them to be de-energised (as indicated by a drop in blood pressure). For participants allowed to have a glass of water, by contrast, it was positive fantasies about exam success, not water, that led to them being de-energised.
Across all the studies, the researchers took pains to factor out other explanations - for example, they ruled out the effect of irritation, in case negative fantasies are energising by virtue of being irritating. They ruled out the possibility that some fantasies are easier to conjure than others. And they had a neutral fantasy condition, allowing them to confirm that positive fantasies really are de-energising, rather than it simply being that negative fantasies are energising.
So, is there any benefit to positive fantasies? From a survival perspective, if a goal, such as food or water, is unobtainable, there could be some advantage to enjoying a fantasy that switches you into a low-energy mode (望梅止渴). Similarly, if a task fills you with dread and your short-term goal is relaxation, then indulging in positive fantasies about desired outcomes could be a way to reduce anxiety.
But ultimately, Happes and Oettingen believe that positive fantasies are likely to scupper your changes of obtaining your goals. "Instead of promoting achievement, positive fantasies will sap job-seekers of the energy to pound the pavement, and drain the lovelorn of the energy to approach the one they like," they write. "Fantasies that are less positive - that question whether an ideal future can be achieved, and that depict obstacles, problems and setbacks - should be more beneficial for mustering the energy needed to obtain success."
This study isn't the first to explode the myth of a traditional self-help tool. A 2009 paper found that repeating positive mantras about themselves led people low in self-esteem to feel worse.
_________________________________
Kappes, H., and Oettingen, G. (2011). Positive fantasies about idealized futures sap energy. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47 (4), 719-729 DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.02.003
This post was written by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.
- Re: 为什么励志让你更不可能美梦成真,以及why望梅止渴worksposted on 05/25/2011
这让人成功的energy不好只用量血压来测量吧?搞不好没成功先弄出焦虑症高血压来。
前一阵看一本讲童话兼女性“励志”的书Women who run with the wolves 和这个
说得差不多。她提醒女性不要indulge in fantasy, 象卖火柴的小女孩一样,点燃
火柴取得一分钟的幻影,最后还是冻死。有机会还是要寻找真正的光源。我当时就
想上网什么的其实就和点火柴一样。
- posted on 05/25/2011
Susan wrote:
这让人成功的energy不好只用量血压来测量吧?搞不好没成功先弄出焦虑症高血压来。
苏三问的好。我没贴评论部分,有质疑和解释。
http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-positive-fantasies-make-your-dreams.html
pat bowne said...
Most of this research seems to uncritically accept that a lower heart rate = less energy to devote to a goal. Was that addressed in the original papers?
12:47 PM
Dr. Janet Civitelli said...
I agree with Pat's concern. Lower blood pressure = less energy to achieve a goal? That seems like quite a stretch. In my own specialty (career development), I've noticed a very strong and positive correlation between a job seeker's ability to imagine themselves successful in a job search and persisting until a good outcome is achieved.
1:20 PM
Christian Jarrett said...
Hi both
That's a valid concern, but please note that parts of the research also involved other measures, including self-report and actual goals achieved over a week. Here's the authors' rationale for measuring blood pressure:
"The most reliable response of the cardiovascular system for assessing energization is cardiac contractility; this response can be indexed by systolic blood pressure (SBP, the maximum pressure exerted by the blood against the vessel walls following a heartbeat; [Obrist, 1981] and [Wright, 1996]), as SBP is systematically influenced by contractility. SBP is largely governed by the sympathetic nervous system, which is increasingly activated as a task proves more exciting (Duffy, 1962). For example, performing in a job interview should heighten blood pressure as compared to conversing with an old friend. Even anticipating a demanding behavioral task results in increased blood pressure (Wright et al., 1989); thus, simply imagining oneself performing in a job interview affects the cardiovascular response. However, idealized positive fantasies – such as imagining easily impressing the interviewer – obscure the need to invest effort. Thus, positive fantasy about a desired future should lead to low energy as indicated by SBP."
- Re: 为什么励志让你更不可能美梦成真,以及why望梅止渴worksposted on 05/25/2011
Susan wrote:
前一阵看一本讲童话兼女性“励志”的书Women who run with the wolves 和这个
说得差不多。她提醒女性不要indulge in fantasy, 象卖火柴的小女孩一样,点燃
火柴取得一分钟的幻影,最后还是冻死。有机会还是要寻找真正的光源。我当时就
想上网什么的其实就和点火柴一样。
很诗意哈。把存在比擦火柴,是有诗人写过。存在反正得花掉,自己不花掉最后也是被死神花掉。
Please paste HTML code and press Enter.
(c) 2010 Maya Chilam Foundation