Mental simulation of future possibilities: Preparing for action or protecting the self?

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a dual-motive theory of how future possibilities are typically simulated and evaluated. According to this framework, people attempt to strike a balance between preparing for action (approach-based expansion) and protecting the self against threat (avoidance-based narrowing), in which the main function of future thinking is to prepare the person for action. As suggestive empirical basis, we review selected findings from psychology and social science—including cognitive sampling of alternative possibilities, prediction, planning, moral judgment, experienced and anticipated emotion, and mental health research. Across these diverse domains, approach-based expansion can lead to agentic optimism, constructing a wide space of positive possibilities to pursue and choose from, whereas avoidance-based narrowing can lead to defensive pessimism, reducing the attentional perspective to a risk-minimizing exit strategy. The overarching goal with proposing this simplified framework is to help organize research on possibility-generation through a motivational lens, focusing on context-dependent changes in the two modes of prospective motivation: approach-based expansion versus avoidance-based narrowing. Hopefully, the proposed dual-motive framework can serve as a guide for new directions in future research, exploring how alternative possibilities are created, realized, and sometimes neglected in human life.