Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening and enjoy the podcast. Gabrielle Autenon, it is
Speaker 1: a pleasure to have you on this podcast. You know,
Speaker 1: we've had some delightful chat swallows at NYU at the
Speaker 1: Olive Tree Cafe. I have some fond memories, and I
Speaker 1: know that you have been very interested in some of
Speaker 1: the work I've done on daydreaming, and I've been immensely
Speaker 1: interested in the work that you've been doing and kind
Speaker 1: of reconceptualizing all sorts of things. I thought we could
Speaker 1: start a little bit at tracing some of your history
Speaker 1: and how you got to your current research interest. Going
Speaker 1: let's go back to maybe even grad school. What was
Speaker 1: your thesis on in grad school? Well, I have a
Speaker 1: kind of checkered past in the sense that I started
Speaker 1: off actually with photography, and then I went into biology
Speaker 1: and studied biology, and in biology, I was very interested
Speaker 1: in behavioral biology. So I went to grad school at
Speaker 1: the much Plant Institute for Behavior by Physiology in the
Speaker 1: Citeason where Connrad Lawrence was and then I also went
Speaker 1: to work with Robert Hind in Cambridge and the Medical
Speaker 1: Research Council. And I was very much interested in behavior
Speaker 1: and behavior change all my life, and you know, the
Speaker 1: question of why people do what they do and imaginingly
Speaker 1: in Cambridge in England, then I met some psychologists and
Speaker 1: these psychologists were fortunate from my eyes, out of my perspective,
Speaker 1: in the sense that they could come up with ideas
Speaker 1: and then test them. And coming up with ideas and
Speaker 1: then actually imperiodly testing them, I found this something very attractive.
Speaker 1: Now in biology, it's harder to come up with your
Speaker 1: own behavior biology, it's harder to come up with your
Speaker 1: own ideas in the sense that you create a kind
Speaker 1: of new phenomenon or you'd observe a new phenomenon, whereas
Speaker 1: in psychology it was really great because you could come
Speaker 1: up with the idea and then test it. And so
Speaker 1: I was sold to psychology then. And then I went
Speaker 1: to the United States and work with Marty Zeligman in
Speaker 1: Philadelphia where you are. And after that I went to
Speaker 1: the March Plattitude for Human Development in Berlin. And I
Speaker 1: was always very interested in behavior change, obviously, but then
Speaker 1: also the question of how thinking about the future and
Speaker 1: imagine in the future, how that would affect behavior dream
Speaker 1: That was my kind of original interest that kept with
Speaker 1: me for all these years. So you probably influenced Martin.
Speaker 1: So first of all, for listeners, Marin Seligman is one
Speaker 1: of the founders of the field of positive psychology. And
Speaker 1: you did your post doc with Martin Seligman. Is that right?
Speaker 1: That's right? And at that time I was very much
Speaker 1: interested in hope, and when I came to work with Marty,
Speaker 1: he was interested in optimism, so I felt there was
Speaker 1: just hope is something different than optimism in terms that hope.
Speaker 1: People can have hope when they are low likelihoods of success.
Speaker 1: So if you're not optimistic about the future, you can
Speaker 1: still have hope. And that's how I came to work
Speaker 1: on imagery and on fantasies, because you can't have low
Speaker 1: expectancies of success but still have positive images and positive fantasies,
Speaker 1: And that's how I got into them. Imagery and fantasy
Speaker 1: work early early on, in the end of the eighties. Actually,
Speaker 1: were you with a daydreamer yourself? Did you view positive
Speaker 1: fantasies in a positive light when you've started out? Well,
Speaker 1: this is a very interesting question because it's very hard
Speaker 1: to measure kind of online daydreaming. I mean, as you
Speaker 1: know from your own work, you can ask people you know,
Speaker 1: are you a daydreamer, and then they give you an answer.
Speaker 1: But then if you look really whether they are daydreaming,
Speaker 1: and how often they are daydreaming, and how often they
Speaker 1: dody dream positively or negatively, you might get very different results.
Speaker 1: So I don't know whether I'm a daydreamer. I know
Speaker 1: that daydreaming is a phenomenon which always interested me and
Speaker 1: where I felt that daydreams can make a big difference
Speaker 1: in terms of how people feel, act and think. So
Speaker 1: I imagine that you influenced some of Marty's thinking on perspection,
Speaker 1: which in recent years he's done a whole research program
Speaker 1: on perspection. Well, you need to ask Marty about that,
Speaker 1: but I guess so because I was always from before
Speaker 1: I even came I was interested in thinking about the
Speaker 1: future and how thinking about the future influencers behavior, and
Speaker 1: I was always kind of a little worried that people
Speaker 1: who base thinking about the future just on the expectancy
Speaker 1: or attribution concepts that they might miss out the imagery
Speaker 1: and the daydreaming part. And obviously your mentor, I'm saying,
Speaker 1: on the great work of that. And so he was
Speaker 1: always a big heroes mane. Yeah. You know, it's interesting
Speaker 1: because there seems to be multiple research traditions. So there's
Speaker 1: this Jerome Singer line of thought starting originating in the
Speaker 1: I guess in the fifties sixties on painting daydream in
Speaker 1: a very positive light to what Drum's saying called positive
Speaker 1: constructive daydreaming, right, And then in the past ten years
Speaker 1: or so fifteen years ago, there's a whole research literature
Speaker 1: on mind wandering in the cognitive science literature that conceptualizes
Speaker 1: mind wandering or daydreaming as cognitive control failures. And then
Speaker 1: I sort of see your line of threat of research
Speaker 1: kind of in another powerl path or an intersecting path,
Speaker 1: where you certainly don't say daydreaming is evil or horrible,
Speaker 1: but you do want to counteract it with a little
Speaker 1: bit of reality. You know, the self help literature is
Speaker 1: so big on the importance of positive thinking, and you
Speaker 1: talk about using the phrase positive thinking. But I think
Speaker 1: it's also important distinguish here a little bit between optimism
Speaker 1: and positive fantasies. There are different things, is that right? Well,
Speaker 1: this is what putting In admire in two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: and in my work also in the nineties, I've kind
Speaker 1: of distinguished between positive thinking about the future in terms
Speaker 1: of expectations, which are the likelihoods that certain events will
Speaker 1: happen in the future are not and daydreams about these events.
Speaker 1: So you can daydream of positively fantasize about events in
Speaker 1: the future despite the fact that you think they might
Speaker 1: not happen. So expectancies are judgments about how likely something
Speaker 1: will become real, and daydreams are just the sheer stream
Speaker 1: of thought, like William James's This Year stream of thought,
Speaker 1: a stream of consciousness where these events kind of pass
Speaker 1: by in front of your mind's eye. So there are
Speaker 1: different ways of thinking about the future with very different
Speaker 1: behavioral and emotional consequences. Yeah, it's interesting thinking abou optimism
Speaker 1: as based on prior expectations, prior experiences. That's usually what
Speaker 1: self efficacy is. Self eficcy is strongly tied as a
Speaker 1: construct to optimism as you just defined it. Yeah, efficacy
Speaker 1: are defined as expectations of whether it can perform certain
Speaker 1: behavior which is needed for a desired outcome. And Bandura's
Speaker 1: work has been hugely influential and efficacy expectations have been
Speaker 1: so helpful in understanding how important these expectations are for behavior.
Speaker 1: But eficacy expectations, as Bandua lines out, are based on
Speaker 1: part performance. So if you have a student who's been
Speaker 1: doing well in the past, you will have expectations or
Speaker 1: efficacy expectations that you can perform the work to do
Speaker 1: well in the future. So they are based on the
Speaker 1: past experiences. They are a good summary of what has
Speaker 1: been happening in the past on your past performance history.
Speaker 1: Dat dreams very differently. They come from a different source.
Speaker 1: Had the buried cup is and I did an I
Speaker 1: study where we show that you know, if you induce needs,
Speaker 1: then positive fantasies about the future results. So they have
Speaker 1: a very different region than expectations. Deadreams need not be
Speaker 1: that way. I read your book. Occurred to me, I
Speaker 1: mean we could have daydreams about things that are grounded
Speaker 1: in our path successes, you know, daydreams about maybe our
Speaker 1: past triumphs. But maybe that's not you to just say
Speaker 1: that's not a positive fantasy. Well, I can daydream about
Speaker 1: the past, I can daydream about my present environment, and
Speaker 1: that I can day dream about the future. Daydreams are
Speaker 1: free thoughts and images. And that's the reason why I
Speaker 1: think there's very interesting because they can of different vaialaens
Speaker 1: that can be more positive on more negative. And you
Speaker 1: can actually sort of depict all sorts of events and
Speaker 1: scenarios in your daydreams that are kind of linked to
Speaker 1: social norms and natural laws or not. You can do
Speaker 1: anything really, any kind of idea you had at some point.
Speaker 1: The idea of daydreams and of fantasies is that they're
Speaker 1: free selves and images, whereas expectations are judgments or judgments
Speaker 1: like Marty's saying, sort of resulting from attributions. But their
Speaker 1: expectancies they have a different function if you want. I mean,
Speaker 1: they assess the relationship of a certain event or scenario
Speaker 1: to the reality, whereas the daydreams they are just severe
Speaker 1: imagery about events and scenarios. Yeah, and in studying daydreams,
Speaker 1: you found a bit of a counterintitor finding. You found
Speaker 1: that people who have dream positively about a desirable future
Speaker 1: outcome in a lot of situations, they're less likely to
Speaker 1: actually act on those daydreams and succeed than those who don't.
Speaker 1: And this does sound very counterte and I imagine this
Speaker 1: was surprising finding for you. Could you tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit more about some of the earlier findings on this. Yeah, actually,
Speaker 1: we kind of stumbled into that. At first. We found
Speaker 1: that the more positively overweight women who were enrolled in
Speaker 1: that weight reduction program fantasized about their success in reducing weight,
Speaker 1: the less way they lost after three months and a
Speaker 1: year and even two years. And so at first we thought, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe this is a flu gourd. This is kind of
Speaker 1: you needed to go back to the data and say, see,
Speaker 1: well did I code them right? Maybe I made a
Speaker 1: coding mistake or so. But then we replicated in a
Speaker 1: series of studies that these positive day dreams about the
Speaker 1: future actually are detrimental for the effort you put into
Speaker 1: actually achieving these day dreams. So, for example, in another study,
Speaker 1: we looked at university graduates, and the more positive university
Speaker 1: graduates fantasized about their successful transition into work life than
Speaker 1: the fewer job offers they got, and the smaller the
Speaker 1: salary was after two years. Or the more positively students
Speaker 1: fantasized about excelling in their exam, the less well they
Speaker 1: did on the exam, or the more positively hip replacement
Speaker 1: surgery patients fantasised about the quick and easier recovery, the
Speaker 1: less well they were judged by the physical therapists to
Speaker 1: do in terms of being able to move their joint
Speaker 1: and the fewer steps they could walk, and the less
Speaker 1: well was their general recovery. So it seems that here
Speaker 1: the more positively they fantasized, then less well they recovered,
Speaker 1: or else the more powerful fantasized about getting together with
Speaker 1: the preferred a person of the opposite sex, the less
Speaker 1: likely they got into a relationship with that person. So,
Speaker 1: sort of accumulating these findings, we reasoned, there must be
Speaker 1: something which makes these positive fantasies pleasant at the moment,
Speaker 1: but on the long run they don't really help to
Speaker 1: implement the desired future. And even if you yeah, you
Speaker 1: say yeah, I wish I knew all these findings when
Speaker 1: I was in middle school or in high school, and
Speaker 1: you know, all these girls had crushes on and I
Speaker 1: just never dawned me'd actually talked to any of them. Right,
Speaker 1: that's exactly it. I mean afterwards we feel, why did
Speaker 1: we talk to it? Why didn't we enclch that person?
Speaker 1: And that's exactly it. I mean, pleasantly on fantasizing does
Speaker 1: not bring us actually to do the painful act of
Speaker 1: approaching her and saying, yeah, I really like you. And
Speaker 1: even on a societal level, we find that the more
Speaker 1: positive newspaper reports are in the economic session of you know, newspapers,
Speaker 1: the less well to the un stock market data developed
Speaker 1: over the next weeks. So it seems that positive fantasies,
Speaker 1: so pleasant at the moment, actually have problematic effects on
Speaker 1: the mental and on the physical development on the short
Speaker 1: term if there are complex paths, and then on the
Speaker 1: long term when it comes to kind of more identiticals
Speaker 1: or life goal. Let's talk about that physical dimension. You've
Speaker 1: mentioned that this idea, you know, energizing the daydreams, what
Speaker 1: they sap our motivation and our energy to take action?
Speaker 1: Is that? Right? Yeah? I had the very capus, and
Speaker 1: I then sort of looked at it experimentally because you know,
Speaker 1: the first data we're all correlational. But then we looked
Speaker 1: at them experimentally, and then we induce positive fantasies as
Speaker 1: opposed to negative fantasies or questioning fantasies or no fantasies
Speaker 1: or factual thoughts, you know, in a series of experiments,
Speaker 1: and what we find is that when we do these
Speaker 1: positive fantasys and positive daydreams about the sired future, and
Speaker 1: people actually lose the energy to actually perform the kind
Speaker 1: of difficult way to reach these positive fantasty So actually
Speaker 1: we can measure this energy either just simply asking people
Speaker 1: how energised do you feel? Or by looking at the
Speaker 1: systemic blood pressure. So it seems that this kind of
Speaker 1: deterioration of energy happens on many levels, on the feeling level,
Speaker 1: but also then on the implicit or non conscious level
Speaker 1: of being the will measured just systonlic blood pressure. Nobody
Speaker 1: has really control about the systemic blood pressure yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is all interesting. And before we sound like we're
Speaker 1: big haters of daydreaming here, which I certainly not and
Speaker 1: I don't think you are, let's talk a little about
Speaker 1: some of the positives in and of itself of daydreaming.
Speaker 1: Even given all these other findings that you have so
Speaker 1: looking at to the hope literature and the optimism when
Speaker 1: I mean, there is research showing that kids who live
Speaker 1: in very poor environments or seemingly hopeless environments, those who
Speaker 1: experiences warned helplessness, if we can get them imagining about
Speaker 1: a future self, you find that there are better academic outcomes.
Speaker 1: So there is research on that. How can we reconcile
Speaker 1: that with your findings? Well, as you say, I'm not
Speaker 1: at all opposed to day dreaming, and I'm not a
Speaker 1: positive day dreaming in general, I mean, and that's not
Speaker 1: what our data show. What our data show is that
Speaker 1: these positive day dreams, if you want to solve a
Speaker 1: complex problem or a kind of difficult efforts for problem,
Speaker 1: or achieve a kind of wish that needs energy and effort,
Speaker 1: then they are not enough. Also, in rethinking positive thinking,
Speaker 1: what is very clear that positive fantasies are the start
Speaker 1: of realizing these fantasies, because if you don't have positive
Speaker 1: fantasies about the future, then where should you go? And
Speaker 1: you don't have any direction. And in these positive daydreams
Speaker 1: you can do a lot. I mean, you can first
Speaker 1: do what you alluded to. If you have a situation
Speaker 1: where there's there's no freedom of action, where you neither
Speaker 1: contact nor disengage in these situations, and dreaming about the
Speaker 1: future gives you at least the mood and the motivation
Speaker 1: to stay in the field, like Godly Bean would say.
Speaker 1: So you stay in, you keep in, but you don't
Speaker 1: fully act, nor do you disengage. But if you can't
Speaker 1: do that anyway, then they are actually helpful. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they are helpful. For example, you know, if you need
Speaker 1: to wait in line and you not have nothing to do,
Speaker 1: you might as well positively daydream about your next lovcasion,
Speaker 1: or about a nice encounter, or even explore some possibilities
Speaker 1: of the future in your daydreams. So these daydreams are
Speaker 1: not only kind of enjoy the desired future in the
Speaker 1: here and now, and if you have time to enjoy it,
Speaker 1: just enjoy it. This is fine. But you can also
Speaker 1: explore the future in these stage rooms. You can explore
Speaker 1: the possibilities of the future in these stag dreams. So,
Speaker 1: for example, you know, you have these wonderful ideas of
Speaker 1: going to a certain movie, and you imagine to go
Speaker 1: to the movie and to be in there, and then
Speaker 1: you imagine how wonderful that movie is, and then you
Speaker 1: sudden bloss kind of imagine that maybe this kind of movie,
Speaker 1: I don't know whether I really like that, So maybe
Speaker 1: tonight I'd rather do something else. Maybe I'd rather go
Speaker 1: and really talk to the person I'm going out with,
Speaker 1: because this is more fun than just sitting there and
Speaker 1: then consuming and then going home again. So, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever small things or big things, people dream about what
Speaker 1: they want to become. So one person might dream about
Speaker 1: becoming a doctor, how wonderful it would be to be
Speaker 1: a doctor, so you know, having all the kind of
Speaker 1: symbols of being a doctor. But then he adds to
Speaker 1: daydreams that he's an hospital and there might be some
Speaker 1: kind of unpleasant, not very kind of esthetic things in
Speaker 1: the hospital, and suddenly he thinks, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's the reason I really want to get out
Speaker 1: of the hospital. And then he knows, maybe, you know,
Speaker 1: one side of becoming a doctor is nice form, but
Speaker 1: the other side might be so that he'd rather do
Speaker 1: something else. And so you can explore the future possibilities
Speaker 1: in your day dreams, and for that they're very very helpful.
Speaker 1: So you can explore what is really that I want,
Speaker 1: What is it that I want to do? What is
Speaker 1: that fits me? Where I belong. So they're very, very helpful.
Speaker 1: They just need to be treated in a fair way.
Speaker 1: They're helpful for some things and they need to be
Speaker 1: complemented for others. I hear you. I hear you, And
Speaker 1: your research has gone beyond that, taking it a couple
Speaker 1: of steps further, just figuring out some sort of practical
Speaker 1: way of helping people reach their achieve those dreams while
Speaker 1: they're dreaming. And this something this to mental contrasting. So
Speaker 1: maybe you could tell our listeners a little more what
Speaker 1: mental contrasting is and how how could apply in their
Speaker 1: own lives. Yeah, mental contrasting is a concept. It's meta
Speaker 1: contrasting of the future and the reality. Is really a
Speaker 1: concept which came out of our research where we found
Speaker 1: that sheer positive fantasizing is just not enough to actually
Speaker 1: read the positive fantasies in actuality. And what we reasoned is,
Speaker 1: and what we found in report of the participants is
Speaker 1: that in these positive fantasies, they just sort of did
Speaker 1: not consider any obstacles, They did not consider any hindrances,
Speaker 1: no temptations. They've just kind of feigned already being there.
Speaker 1: So the motivation to actually going the hard way was
Speaker 1: kind of lowered. And so we thought, okay, if we
Speaker 1: present to them the obstacles and hindrances and temptations that
Speaker 1: might stand in the way on the way to wish fulfillment,
Speaker 1: that by presenting them that, in addition to these positive
Speaker 1: fantasies about the future, that then they might get actually
Speaker 1: impelled to overcome these obstacles and actually go the hard
Speaker 1: way to reach the desired future. And we reasoned that
Speaker 1: by considering these obstacles, temptations, and difficulties on the way
Speaker 1: to wish fulfillment, that they then can prepare themselves and
Speaker 1: simply kind of plan for them and get prepared and
Speaker 1: get aware that this kind of way to wish fulfillment
Speaker 1: might be a little bumpier than they had hoped. And
Speaker 1: that's when we came up with mental contrasting. Matter contrasting
Speaker 1: is a very simple exercise. We ask people to identify
Speaker 1: a wish and then to actually sort of identify the
Speaker 1: best outcome to that wish and imagine that best outcome.
Speaker 1: What we then do is, which are ask them to
Speaker 1: identify the obstacle that stands in the way to wish
Speaker 1: fulfillment and imagine that obstacle. So what it is. It's
Speaker 1: a mental exercise where people imagine the desired future and
Speaker 1: then they imagine the obstacles of reality that stands in
Speaker 1: the way that stand in the way of the desired future,
Speaker 1: and by doing that they understand how likely it is
Speaker 1: that they will actually be able to achieve the desired future.
Speaker 1: They also then recognize if the obstacles are so formidable
Speaker 1: that they will not want to go all the hard
Speaker 1: way to achieve the wishes, then they can either delegate
Speaker 1: or postpone or let go. So it is a strategy
Speaker 1: which helps people to kind of in parentheses, clean up
Speaker 1: their lives because it helps you to actually fully go
Speaker 1: for something or then also say okay, not now, or
Speaker 1: maybe or maybe not at all, and then they can
Speaker 1: free up their resources, the time and their effort and
Speaker 1: their money for other enterprises which are more promising. But
Speaker 1: I think is important to understand is how manic contrasting
Speaker 1: really works. We've done so many experiments to understand how
Speaker 1: meticcontrasting of the future and the reality actually instigates these
Speaker 1: behavior change. Behavior change in the stans that people fully
Speaker 1: commit or actually sort of understand that they invest their
Speaker 1: resources into something better or something more promising. And what
Speaker 1: mediccontrasting really does is if you do meticcontrasting with respect
Speaker 1: to a wish that is achievable for you, and that
Speaker 1: is thout challenging. I mean, achieving I wish it's super easy,
Speaker 1: then you don't need anything. You just go for it.
Speaker 1: But if achieving the wish is a little bit more complex,
Speaker 1: and then what meticicontrasting does is it connects the future
Speaker 1: the reality and you don't need to do anything about that.
Speaker 1: It does that. Without that, people even are aware of it,
Speaker 1: So then you can't really think about the future anymore.
Speaker 1: Without that, the reality kind of comes in. And not
Speaker 1: only does it connect the future and the reality or
Speaker 1: the obstacle of reality, but it also connects the obstacle
Speaker 1: of reality with the instrumental means to overcome the reality.
Speaker 1: And in addition, it changes the meaning of reality. So
Speaker 1: you could say, okay, let's say you have a person
Speaker 1: who has a exam on Tuesday, and he wants to
Speaker 1: do a good job on that exam, and then he
Speaker 1: sort of fantasized it's about how wonderful it would be
Speaker 1: to achieve a good grade in the exam, And then
Speaker 1: he's saying now what stands in the way. What stands
Speaker 1: in the way, Well, it stands in a way that
Speaker 1: I might be actually sort of spending two much kind
Speaker 1: of time on Saturday night going to this party, so
Speaker 1: in order to reach the good exam on Tuesday. Basically
Speaker 1: the party is an obstacle. So now the party is
Speaker 1: an obstacle to reach in good grade on Tuesday. Whereas
Speaker 1: if he doesn't do mental contrasting, you know, he thinks
Speaker 1: about the party. It's a fun party, and you know
Speaker 1: that might have good bearing, that might have nice people
Speaker 1: there and whatever. So the party is a fun event.
Speaker 1: But once you do mental contrasting and you have fantasised
Speaker 1: about acceding in your exam, the party is now an obstacle.
Speaker 1: It is now something which is evaluated more negatively and
Speaker 1: which is linked as an obstacle to the desired future. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, what mental contrasting does, it's a contrast exercise.
Speaker 1: It's a mental exercise which people consciously go through. It's
Speaker 1: an imagery exercise. You imagine the future, you imagine the
Speaker 1: reality that stands in the way of the future, but
Speaker 1: it has non conscious consequences, and there's consequences outside of awareness,
Speaker 1: and we know that from many experiments to these consequences
Speaker 1: which are non conscious, that they actually mediate the behavior
Speaker 1: change effects. So they immediate the effects on being fully
Speaker 1: committed or saying no to the party, or the efforts
Speaker 1: to actually achieve the desired future and overcome the obstacle.
Speaker 1: So it's neat because it's a conscious exercise with non
Speaker 1: consequences which then are responsible for actually the behavior changes.
Speaker 1: And so it's a little bit like, you know, you're
Speaker 1: programming yourself to do what you want to do to
Speaker 1: overcome these obstacles. So in that way, it is a
Speaker 1: kind of new way of looking at imagery techniques that
Speaker 1: imagery techniques can have non conscious consequences which then lead
Speaker 1: to behavior chain And now if you look at WHOOP,
Speaker 1: that is basically wish outcome obstacles. So it's mentally contrasting
Speaker 1: what we just talked about, and then it also adds
Speaker 1: on the implementation intentions. It's a complicated word, but it
Speaker 1: has been a concept he stands for. That's the p exactly,
Speaker 1: and that's a concept which had been around for a
Speaker 1: while and which was discovered that Peter Goldwitzer also here
Speaker 1: from ny U and yeah, husband, but I can't say
Speaker 1: it's discovered by my husband. I would say, of course, Peter,
Speaker 1: I want to clarify it is an husband. Were you
Speaker 1: there like when he discovered that, like in like the
Speaker 1: kitchen or something with him? Yeah, no, sure, But what
Speaker 1: is so wonderful in these implementation intentions or if then plans?
Speaker 1: There's so much research now, you know, all over the world,
Speaker 1: there's lots of reasons showing that if you have a goal,
Speaker 1: if you're determined to go for something, and you complement
Speaker 1: the goal with if then plans or implementation intentions, then
Speaker 1: it really sort of heightens the probability that you reach
Speaker 1: your goal. So it's a planning technique which helps you
Speaker 1: to overcome these kind of formidable obstacles. And what we
Speaker 1: thought would be a good idea is to combine which
Speaker 1: outcome ofsticles with the plans for the following reasons. First
Speaker 1: of all, mental contrasting already sort of connects the future
Speaker 1: and the reality, and then it also ready connects and
Speaker 1: this is even more important the reality with the instrumental
Speaker 1: means to overcome the reality, but implementation intentions do that
Speaker 1: even more explicitly. So we thought for those mental contrasting
Speaker 1: or mental contrasted wishes which actually present really kind of
Speaker 1: more complex and complicated obstacles. The efvent plan would be
Speaker 1: particularly helpful made whoop and what the plan really does.
Speaker 1: It explicitly asks the person who is doing the whoop
Speaker 1: to form the following if then plan. If obstacle, then
Speaker 1: I will, and then the behavior to overcome obstacle. And
Speaker 1: what's interesting is that the implementation intentions or IF tent plans,
Speaker 1: they have certain prerequisites which need to be fulfilled so
Speaker 1: that they are effective. So, for example, in order to
Speaker 1: have IF ten plans being effective, you need to have
Speaker 1: a strong goal commitment and you need to have a
Speaker 1: strong determination to actually achieve you wish or go and
Speaker 1: medic contrasting provides that. So as we saw it, it
Speaker 1: kind of determines that people either fully love it or
Speaker 1: live it. So when expectations are high and the obstacles
Speaker 1: are overcomable, then they really go for it. So it
Speaker 1: provides the determination or the commitment to actually the wish.
Speaker 1: In addition, what mental contesting does it defines an obstacle
Speaker 1: which is relevant and that's also a prerequisite for implementation
Speaker 1: intentions to work. And in addition, by imagining the obstacle,
Speaker 1: people will discover the means to overcome the obstacle. So
Speaker 1: it also provides the behavior that you can perform in
Speaker 1: order to overcome the obstacle. So what it then is
Speaker 1: as a combination is you define the wish. You say,
Speaker 1: what is it really that I want? And very often
Speaker 1: these wishes are kind of latent. You haven't been thinking
Speaker 1: about these wishes for a while because usually we go
Speaker 1: about our daily life and we don't think about these wishes.
Speaker 1: But think about a wish that is dear to you.
Speaker 1: You need to have a wish that is dear to you,
Speaker 1: not any kind of wish. You could just come up, now,
Speaker 1: what is it that you really want? What is dear
Speaker 1: to you? You define the wish and then and you
Speaker 1: keep it in front of your mind's eye, and then
Speaker 1: you say, what would be the best thing that comes
Speaker 1: out if I fulfill that wish? What is the best outcome?
Speaker 1: Very often, if it is a feeling or it is
Speaker 1: something you feel strong about that would happen if you
Speaker 1: fulfill your wish, you define that outcome, and then you
Speaker 1: imagine that outcome, and here the daydream comes again. You
Speaker 1: imagine the outcome, and once you imagine the outcome and
Speaker 1: really immerse yourself in these day dreams. You identify the
Speaker 1: obstacle of reality that stands in the way of fulfilling
Speaker 1: that wish and experiencing that outcome. Now, what is it
Speaker 1: in you that stands in the way that you fulfill
Speaker 1: the wish and experience that outcome? What is it in you? Personally?
Speaker 1: No excuse to say, what is it in you? And
Speaker 1: you can dig deeper there, don't give yourself an excuse.
Speaker 1: Just try to dig deeper. What is really that stance
Speaker 1: in the way. And once you found that obstacle, imagine
Speaker 1: that out obstacle, and by imagining that that obstacle, you
Speaker 1: will understand what you can do to overcome that obstacle.
Speaker 1: And then you can say, and now the implementation intention
Speaker 1: has come in. If obstacle occurs, then I will. And
Speaker 1: now you put in there your behavior to overcome obstacle.
Speaker 1: And then you say if and then you imagine once
Speaker 1: more obstacle, and you imagine the obstacle occurring, then I will,
Speaker 1: And then you imagine the behavior that you will perform
Speaker 1: and the effective behavior you will perform to overcome that obstacle.
Speaker 1: And that's basically what whoop is all about. Wow. That
Speaker 1: sounds great. Also sounds like a lot of work. Maybe
Speaker 1: after hearing that, I just want to d during the
Speaker 1: rest of my life. Well, it is not a lot
Speaker 1: of work at all. It's a lot of process. And
Speaker 1: you can do it basically everywhere. You can do it.
Speaker 1: In the subway, you can do it, you know when
Speaker 1: you wait because somebody in academia has you wait for
Speaker 1: I don't know, half an hour or maybe even five minutes.
Speaker 1: You can do it in the bus. You can do
Speaker 1: it wherever you want. The only thing you need is
Speaker 1: you need to create a mental space before you go
Speaker 1: into the exercise. You need to create a mental space
Speaker 1: for you. Did you say, now, you know the subway
Speaker 1: right from kind of upper east side to the lower
Speaker 1: east side or something, the subway right of about ten
Speaker 1: minutes or so, this is just for me now, and
Speaker 1: I don't get kind of interrupted, and you put your
Speaker 1: cell phone away and you say, okay, this is just
Speaker 1: for me. And then you go off and you say,
Speaker 1: what is my wish? What is a wish that is
Speaker 1: dear to me? What would be the best outcome? Then
Speaker 1: you imagine the best outcome, and then you say, now
Speaker 1: what is it in me that holds me back of
Speaker 1: achieving that worsk and experiencing that outcome. You identify what
Speaker 1: is it in you that holds you back? Very often
Speaker 1: it's an emotion, some anxiety, some old habits, but it's yours.
Speaker 1: You identify your obstacle. I don't need to tell anybody,
Speaker 1: but it's your obstacle. And then you imagine that obstacle.
Speaker 1: And once you imagine that obstacle, you want to understand, Ah,
Speaker 1: that's what I can do to overcome it. And then
Speaker 1: you do the if then plan. If obstacle occurs, then
Speaker 1: I will and then you put in the behavior so
Speaker 1: it's not a lot of work, and once you do
Speaker 1: it a little bit more often, you get really a
Speaker 1: kind of proficient. And then it's fun because it's discovery tour.
Speaker 1: It's a discovery to it. You will discover a lot
Speaker 1: of wishes you didn't know you have, and you will
Speaker 1: discover a lot of obstacles you didn't know you have,
Speaker 1: and you will discover that some obstacles might not impede
Speaker 1: you're only for reaching one wish, but a whole serious
Speaker 1: of wishes. Do you do this yourself at all? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I do it a lot, and now that we have
Speaker 1: the apps, actually I even use the apps for that
Speaker 1: and I do it basically every morning for the next day.
Speaker 1: I said, what is it today that I want to achieve?
Speaker 1: What is my most important wish for today? We're not
Speaker 1: going to do? Where can people get these apps? Could
Speaker 1: you give some give some web page addresses? Sure, the
Speaker 1: apps are on the following web page. It's whoop my
Speaker 1: life dot org. So it's w O O P my
Speaker 1: life dot org. Is that for read? Yeah? That's free.
Speaker 1: Well that is really valuable resource to many. And your
Speaker 1: book is called Rethinking Positive Thinking inside the New Science
Speaker 1: of Motivation. Did you come up with the title that book?
Speaker 1: I'm just curious. Yeah. Yeah, you know, it was hard
Speaker 1: because the book covers our work the benefits and the
Speaker 1: disadvantages of positive day dreams and positive thinking, and that
Speaker 1: has some parts on optimism in there, but it also
Speaker 1: covers all these experimented research and mental contrasting and the
Speaker 1: intervention research on book. So it had kind of not
Speaker 1: only that we you know, the readers can sort of
Speaker 1: understand when and where positive thinking is useful versus less useful.
Speaker 1: It also gives you a solution to use positive thinking
Speaker 1: in a constructive way, in a way where you can
Speaker 1: actually benefit from as a person, or as a group,
Speaker 1: or as a family, or as an institution. And therefore
Speaker 1: it had many different aspects, so it was not easy
Speaker 1: to find a title which kind of covers all these
Speaker 1: different aspects absolutely, And there seems to be a wave
Speaker 1: of books and kind of criticizing positive psychology or this
Speaker 1: positive thing. So are you familiar with Todd Kastions book
Speaker 1: The Upside of Your Dark Side? Their few books, there
Speaker 1: are few books. And what my intention really was is
Speaker 1: not to leave people with a kind of positive thinking
Speaker 1: is good or negative thinking is good or positive thinking
Speaker 1: not a kind of more black and white white picture,
Speaker 1: but to give them a solution what you can do
Speaker 1: with positive thinking, that you can make the best out
Speaker 1: of it in different situations. And so what the book
Speaker 1: really sort of gives the reader is a kind of
Speaker 1: hint where to use what kind of positive thing, And
Speaker 1: it gives them by the sort of describing whoop and
Speaker 1: having some exercises on whoop in there, it gives a
Speaker 1: way to actually use the technique in the daily life
Speaker 1: in order to improve your daily life. I mean, it
Speaker 1: is not a kind of pill which you take and
Speaker 1: then you are happy forever. It is a tool which
Speaker 1: you can take along. You can put it in your pocket,
Speaker 1: or you can sort of put it in your mind,
Speaker 1: and you have a daily friend with whom you can
Speaker 1: converse about how to master and how to cope and
Speaker 1: how to best adjust to what is happening to you
Speaker 1: during your daily life. And it makes you more involved
Speaker 1: into daily lives, and it makes you also understand how
Speaker 1: you can improve your daily life and your long term
Speaker 1: goals in a way so that you can actually achieve
Speaker 1: for what is achievable and that you're not held up
Speaker 1: with things which drain your energy. Oh, it sounds very,
Speaker 1: very helpful, and I hope to start implementing some of
Speaker 1: these things as soon as we get off this interview,
Speaker 1: when I start running down some plans. I mean, what
Speaker 1: is nice too is that people can just sort of
Speaker 1: learn it in a relatively fast way and it liberates
Speaker 1: them and so that they are less dependent on trainers
Speaker 1: and coaches, right, and also makes yeah, yeah, they have
Speaker 1: more control over their lives as well control over their future,
Speaker 1: and that we handle things if they arise these obstacles.
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking, you're not criticizing the whole field of
Speaker 1: positive psychology at all by any means that you've been
Speaker 1: deeply rooted in the field of positive psychology. But would
Speaker 1: you agree your research adds more nuance to and more
Speaker 1: of a practical plan for taking that optimism but making
Speaker 1: that a reality? Is that right? There? Is right? I
Speaker 1: mean what is important to me is that we base
Speaker 1: our idea years emperority data. And I've learned during these
Speaker 1: twenty years I've been working with this topic now so
Speaker 1: much from what the data tell me that what I
Speaker 1: think is important that people get the tools in their
Speaker 1: hands that are actually based on what is really working,
Speaker 1: and that we know how it is working. And I
Speaker 1: think for that WHOOP is really very special because we
Speaker 1: know that it is working, we know how it is working,
Speaker 1: and we know that it is working by non conscious processes,
Speaker 1: which is a huge help in the sense that people
Speaker 1: get kind of they don't need to put in so
Speaker 1: much effort and so much thought in things which also
Speaker 1: can work outside of awareness. And just by the fact
Speaker 1: that we know a lot about how WHOOP works and
Speaker 1: in what situations it works in what way, we have
Speaker 1: a big asset in terms of that we can give
Speaker 1: it to people and say, okay, you can use Whoop
Speaker 1: and it will help you and by actually instilling these
Speaker 1: non conscious processes sounds great. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: talking to me today. And your book is already selling well,
Speaker 1: by the way, I don't know if you're aware of this.
Speaker 1: Oh really no, not at all. I'm so busy actually
Speaker 1: doing during research here they and not even have looked
Speaker 1: how it sells. But I'm so glad to hear that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I wish because I do think, I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: one thing I should add, I didn't write the book
Speaker 1: in order to write a book. I wanted that really
Speaker 1: kind of the mission of metic contesting and Whoop gets
Speaker 1: out there and that people can actually use it and
Speaker 1: can that many people can use it. Excellent. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you for chatting. Thanks a love. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope
Speaker 1: you found this episode just as informative and valperability younited.
Speaker 1: You don't like to read the show notes for this episode,
Speaker 1: we here past that can go to the Psychology Podcast
Speaker 1: dot com.