Seeing Future Success: Does Imagery Perspective Influence Achievement Motivation?

Abstract

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.