预期想象对拖延的影响:想象过程和想象结果的效应分离
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摘要
为了考察预期想象对不同拖延水平个体拖延行为的影响,本研究采用一般拖延量表(General Procrastination Scale)选取高拖延被试和低拖延被试,要求被试在进行模拟现实的拖延任务之前分别对任务过程和任务结果进行预期想象,比较不同拖延水平的被试在预期想象作用下拖延行为的变化。结果表明:(1)在两组被试中,相比于无想象条件下的拖延行为,对任务过程的预期想象会加剧拖延行为,对任务结果的预期想象会减少拖延行为;(2)对任务不同成分的预期想象所引发的情绪与拖延行为的变化相关显著。这说明预期想象和情绪是影响拖延的重要因素,合理地操纵对任务不同成分的预期想象可以有效干预拖延行为。
Procrastination, which refers to the behaviors of voluntarily delay an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay, is a prevalent problematic behavior that diminishes procrastinators' fitness, work efficiency, academic performance and psychological wellbeing across different times and situations. A recent study indicating that procrastination is linked to difficulties in the ability to form vivid mental images raised the question of whether procrastinators present particular difficulties with episodic future thinking(EFT) or display a more general deficit in constructing complex mental images and subsequent study also found that lower EFT score was related to trait procrastination. According to the decision model of procrastination, people compare aversiveness of engaging tasks and rewards which would be achieved after finishing tasks by episodic future thinking. Specific EFT triggers corresponding emotions which are in line with valence of contents in EFT and then these emotions affect decision making by influencing evaluation. However, it is still inconclusive how the EFT influences the procrastination when different types of prospection are presented in mental image. Here, we hypothesize that expecting for aversiveness of engaging tasks would generate negative emotions,like anxiety and dislike, and increase procrastination. On the contrary, expecting for rewards of completing tasks would generate positive emotions and attenuate procrastination.In the present study, we used self-designed experimental paradigm to prove assumptions above-mentioned. Sixty-seven healthy right-handed undergraduate subjects free of ophthalmic diseases(mean age, 20.3 years; 51 females) were recruited. The experimental materials were scatter plots in three difficulty levels generated by MATLAB R2014 a. Participants were asked to point out the qua ntity of dots in plot and they would get credits(for exchanging Renminbi) after completing tasks. If the error between the answer and the actual number was less than 2, participant could enter next trial. Firstly, we asked participants to do some exercises for well-known tasks and, importantly, insuring participants could expect content of tasks completely when they were told what tasks they would engage. All participants should complete tasks in three conditions: no EFT, expecting the process of completing tasks before engaging tasks, and expecting the rewards achieved by completing tasks before engaging tasks. When participants completed all tasks in EFT conditions, they should tell us how vividly they envisioned and what they felt when they envisioned in a 7-point scale.Before the scatter plot was presented, we told participants what kind of tasks they would engage and what credits they could get. Then, participants could decide autonomously to engage task immediately or put off tasks and have a rest first.From the state perspective, the results showed that:(1) Compared with no EFT condition, all participants procrastinated more in expecting the process of completing tasks before engaging tasks;(2) Compared with no EFT condition, all participants procrastinated less in expecting the rewards achieved by completing tasks before engaging tasks;(3) Expecting the process of completing tasks would trigger negative emotions and expecting the rewards achieved by completing tasks would trigger positive emotions. Negative emotions predicted the increase of procrastination, and positive emotions predicted the decrease of procrastination.In conclusion, the present study indicates that expecting specific content of tasks triggers corresponding emotions and affects procrastination compared with no EFT condition for all procrastinators and non-procrastinators. Our results broaden the scope of procrastination study and have important scientific values for intervention of procrastination: we could adjust our emotions and evaluation properly by EFT for tasks in order to attenuate procrastination.
Procrastination, which refers to the behaviors of voluntarily delay an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay, is a prevalent problematic behavior that diminishes procrastinators' fitness, work efficiency, academic performance and psychological wellbeing across different times and situations. A recent study indicating that procrastination is linked to difficulties in the ability to form vivid mental images raised the question of whether procrastinators present particular difficulties with episodic future thinking(EFT) or display a more general deficit in constructing complex mental images and subsequent study also found that lower EFT score was related to trait procrastination. According to the decision model of procrastination, people compare aversiveness of engaging tasks and rewards which would be achieved after finishing tasks by episodic future thinking. Specific EFT triggers corresponding emotions which are in line with valence of contents in EFT and then these emotions affect decision making by influencing evaluation. However, it is still inconclusive how the EFT influences the procrastination when different types of prospection are presented in mental image. Here, we hypothesize that expecting for aversiveness of engaging tasks would generate negative emotions,like anxiety and dislike, and increase procrastination. On the contrary, expecting for rewards of completing tasks would generate positive emotions and attenuate procrastination.In the present study, we used self-designed experimental paradigm to prove assumptions above-mentioned. Sixty-seven healthy right-handed undergraduate subjects free of ophthalmic diseases(mean age, 20.3 years; 51 females) were recruited. The experimental materials were scatter plots in three difficulty levels generated by MATLAB R2014 a. Participants were asked to point out the qua ntity of dots in plot and they would get credits(for exchanging Renminbi) after completing tasks. If the error between the answer and the actual number was less than 2, participant could enter next trial. Firstly, we asked participants to do some exercises for well-known tasks and, importantly, insuring participants could expect content of tasks completely when they were told what tasks they would engage. All participants should complete tasks in three conditions: no EFT, expecting the process of completing tasks before engaging tasks, and expecting the rewards achieved by completing tasks before engaging tasks. When participants completed all tasks in EFT conditions, they should tell us how vividly they envisioned and what they felt when they envisioned in a 7-point scale.Before the scatter plot was presented, we told participants what kind of tasks they would engage and what credits they could get. Then, participants could decide autonomously to engage task immediately or put off tasks and have a rest first.From the state perspective, the results showed that:(1) Compared with no EFT condition, all participants procrastinated more in expecting the process of completing tasks before engaging tasks;(2) Compared with no EFT condition, all participants procrastinated less in expecting the rewards achieved by completing tasks before engaging tasks;(3) Expecting the process of completing tasks would trigger negative emotions and expecting the rewards achieved by completing tasks would trigger positive emotions. Negative emotions predicted the increase of procrastination, and positive emotions predicted the decrease of procrastination.In conclusion, the present study indicates that expecting specific content of tasks triggers corresponding emotions and affects procrastination compared with no EFT condition for all procrastinators and non-procrastinators. Our results broaden the scope of procrastination study and have important scientific values for intervention of procrastination: we could adjust our emotions and evaluation properly by EFT for tasks in order to attenuate procrastination.
引文
蔡曙光.(2017).跨期选择的可塑性:基于预期想象训练的研究.西南大学硕士学位论文.
王珂,张顺民,冯廷勇.(2017).预期想象影响延迟折扣的内在机制:情绪的作用--高、低冲动特质的分离效应.西南大学学报(自然科学版),39(4),151-157.
张顺民,冯廷勇.(2017a).拖延的认知神经机制与基因:行为-脑-基因的多角度研究.心理科学进展,25(3),393-403.
张顺民,冯廷勇.(2017b).拖延的决策模型.心理科学,40(5),1242-1247.
Ainslie,G.(2005).Précis of breakdown of will.Behavioral and Brain Sciences,28(5),635-650.
Atance,C.M.,&O'Neill,D.K.(2001).Episodic future thinking.Trends in Cognitive Sciences,5(12),533-539.
Benoit,R.G.,Gilbert,S.J.,&Burgess,P.W.(2011).A neural mechanism mediating the impact of episodic prospection on farsighted decisions.Journal of Neuroscience the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience,31(18),6771-6779.
Blouin-Hudon,E.M.C.,&Pychyl,T.A.(2015).Experiencing the temporally extended self:Initial support for the role of affective states,vivid mental imagery,and future self-continuity in the prediction of academic procrastination.Personality and Individual Differences,86,50-56.
Boyer,P.(2008).Evolutionary economics of mental time travel?Trends in Cognitive Sciences,12(6),219-224.
Clore,G.L.,&Huntsinger,J.R.(2007).How emotions inform judgment and regulate thought.Trends in Cognitive Sciences,11(9),393-399.
Costa,P.T.,Jr.,&McRae,R.R.(1992).Revised NEO personality inventory(NEO-PI-R)and NEO five-factor inventory(NEO-FFI):Professional manual.Odessa,FL:Psychological Assessment Resources.
Eckert,M.,Ebert,D.D.,Lehr,D.,Sieland,B.,&Berking,M.(2016).Overcome procrastination:Enhancing emotion regulation skills reduce procrastination.Learning and Individual Differences,52,10-18.
Gerlach,K.D.,Spreng,R.N.,Madore,K.P.,&Schacter,D.L.(2014).Future planning:Default network activity couples with frontoparietal control network and reward-processing regions during process and outcome simulations.Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience,9(12),1942-1951.
Knutson,B.,Rick,S.,Wimmer,G.E.,Prelec,D.,&Loewenstein,G.(2007).Neural predictors of purchases.Neuron,53(1),147-156.
Kuhnen,C.M.,&Knutson,B.(2005).The neural basis of financial risk taking.Neuron,47(5),763-770.
Lay,C.H.(1986).At last,my research article on procrastination.Journal of Research in Personality,20(4),474-495.
Liu,L.,Feng,T,Y.,Chen,J.,&Li,H.(2013).The value of emotion:How does episodic prospection modulate delay discounting.Plo S ONE,8(11),e81717.
Peters,J.,&Büchel,C.(2010).Episodic future thinking reduces reward delay discounting through an enhancement of prefrontal-mediotemporal interactions.Neuron,66(1),138-148.
Prévost,C.,Pessiglione,M.,Météreau,E.,Cléry-Melin,M.L.,&Dreher,J.C.(2010).Separate valuation subsystems for delay and effort decision costs.The Journal of Neuroscience,30(42),14080-14090.
Procee,R.,Kamphorst,B.,van Wissen,A.,&Meyer,J.J.(2013).A formal model of procrastination.The Proceedings of the 25th Benelux Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
Rebetez,M.M.L.,Barsics,C.,Rochat,L.,D'Argembeau,A.,&van der Linden,M.(2016).Procrastination,consideration of future consequences,and episodic future thinking.Consciousness and Cognition,42,286-292.
Rozental,A.,&Carlbring,P.(2014).Understanding and treating procrastination:Areview of a common self-regulatory failure.Psychology,5(13),1488-1502.
Schacter,D.L.,Addis,D.R.,&Buckner,R.L.(2007).Remembering the past to imagine the future:The prospective brain.Nature Reviews Neuroscience,8(9),657-661.
Sirois,F.,&Pychyl,T.(2013).Procrastination and the priority of short-term mood regulation:Consequences for future self.Social and Personality Psychology Compass,7(2),115-127.
Sirois,F.M.(2014).Out of sight,out of time?A meta-analytic investigation of procrastination and time perspective.European Journal of Personality,28(5),511-520.
Steel,P.(2007).The nature of procrastination:A meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure.Psychological Bulletin,133(1),65-94.
Tice,D.M.,&Bratslavsky,E.(2000).Giving in to feel good:The place of emotion regulation in the context of general self-control.Psychological Inquiry,11(3),149-159.
Tice,D.M.,Bratslavsky,E.,&Baumeister,R.F.(2001).Emotional distress regulation takes precedence over impulse control:If you feel bad,do it!Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,80,53-67.
van Eerde,W.(2000).Procrastination:Self-regulation in initiating aversive goals.Applied Psychology,49(3),372-389.
van Eerde,W.(2003).A meta-analytically derived nomological network of procrastination.Personality and Individual Differences,35(6),1401-1418.
Watson,D.C.(2001).Procrastination and the five-factor model:A facet level analysis.Personality and Individual Differences,30(1),149-158.
王珂,张顺民,冯廷勇.(2017).预期想象影响延迟折扣的内在机制:情绪的作用--高、低冲动特质的分离效应.西南大学学报(自然科学版),39(4),151-157.
张顺民,冯廷勇.(2017a).拖延的认知神经机制与基因:行为-脑-基因的多角度研究.心理科学进展,25(3),393-403.
张顺民,冯廷勇.(2017b).拖延的决策模型.心理科学,40(5),1242-1247.
Ainslie,G.(2005).Précis of breakdown of will.Behavioral and Brain Sciences,28(5),635-650.
Atance,C.M.,&O'Neill,D.K.(2001).Episodic future thinking.Trends in Cognitive Sciences,5(12),533-539.
Benoit,R.G.,Gilbert,S.J.,&Burgess,P.W.(2011).A neural mechanism mediating the impact of episodic prospection on farsighted decisions.Journal of Neuroscience the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience,31(18),6771-6779.
Blouin-Hudon,E.M.C.,&Pychyl,T.A.(2015).Experiencing the temporally extended self:Initial support for the role of affective states,vivid mental imagery,and future self-continuity in the prediction of academic procrastination.Personality and Individual Differences,86,50-56.
Boyer,P.(2008).Evolutionary economics of mental time travel?Trends in Cognitive Sciences,12(6),219-224.
Clore,G.L.,&Huntsinger,J.R.(2007).How emotions inform judgment and regulate thought.Trends in Cognitive Sciences,11(9),393-399.
Costa,P.T.,Jr.,&McRae,R.R.(1992).Revised NEO personality inventory(NEO-PI-R)and NEO five-factor inventory(NEO-FFI):Professional manual.Odessa,FL:Psychological Assessment Resources.
Eckert,M.,Ebert,D.D.,Lehr,D.,Sieland,B.,&Berking,M.(2016).Overcome procrastination:Enhancing emotion regulation skills reduce procrastination.Learning and Individual Differences,52,10-18.
Gerlach,K.D.,Spreng,R.N.,Madore,K.P.,&Schacter,D.L.(2014).Future planning:Default network activity couples with frontoparietal control network and reward-processing regions during process and outcome simulations.Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience,9(12),1942-1951.
Knutson,B.,Rick,S.,Wimmer,G.E.,Prelec,D.,&Loewenstein,G.(2007).Neural predictors of purchases.Neuron,53(1),147-156.
Kuhnen,C.M.,&Knutson,B.(2005).The neural basis of financial risk taking.Neuron,47(5),763-770.
Lay,C.H.(1986).At last,my research article on procrastination.Journal of Research in Personality,20(4),474-495.
Liu,L.,Feng,T,Y.,Chen,J.,&Li,H.(2013).The value of emotion:How does episodic prospection modulate delay discounting.Plo S ONE,8(11),e81717.
Peters,J.,&Büchel,C.(2010).Episodic future thinking reduces reward delay discounting through an enhancement of prefrontal-mediotemporal interactions.Neuron,66(1),138-148.
Prévost,C.,Pessiglione,M.,Météreau,E.,Cléry-Melin,M.L.,&Dreher,J.C.(2010).Separate valuation subsystems for delay and effort decision costs.The Journal of Neuroscience,30(42),14080-14090.
Procee,R.,Kamphorst,B.,van Wissen,A.,&Meyer,J.J.(2013).A formal model of procrastination.The Proceedings of the 25th Benelux Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
Rebetez,M.M.L.,Barsics,C.,Rochat,L.,D'Argembeau,A.,&van der Linden,M.(2016).Procrastination,consideration of future consequences,and episodic future thinking.Consciousness and Cognition,42,286-292.
Rozental,A.,&Carlbring,P.(2014).Understanding and treating procrastination:Areview of a common self-regulatory failure.Psychology,5(13),1488-1502.
Schacter,D.L.,Addis,D.R.,&Buckner,R.L.(2007).Remembering the past to imagine the future:The prospective brain.Nature Reviews Neuroscience,8(9),657-661.
Sirois,F.,&Pychyl,T.(2013).Procrastination and the priority of short-term mood regulation:Consequences for future self.Social and Personality Psychology Compass,7(2),115-127.
Sirois,F.M.(2014).Out of sight,out of time?A meta-analytic investigation of procrastination and time perspective.European Journal of Personality,28(5),511-520.
Steel,P.(2007).The nature of procrastination:A meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure.Psychological Bulletin,133(1),65-94.
Tice,D.M.,&Bratslavsky,E.(2000).Giving in to feel good:The place of emotion regulation in the context of general self-control.Psychological Inquiry,11(3),149-159.
Tice,D.M.,Bratslavsky,E.,&Baumeister,R.F.(2001).Emotional distress regulation takes precedence over impulse control:If you feel bad,do it!Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,80,53-67.
van Eerde,W.(2000).Procrastination:Self-regulation in initiating aversive goals.Applied Psychology,49(3),372-389.
van Eerde,W.(2003).A meta-analytically derived nomological network of procrastination.Personality and Individual Differences,35(6),1401-1418.
Watson,D.C.(2001).Procrastination and the five-factor model:A facet level analysis.Personality and Individual Differences,30(1),149-158.