Arousal as a Mediator of Behavioral Confirmation

Abstract

When people imagine and explain hypothetical future performance, this imagination can influence their actual performance on a task. We proposed that physiological arousal might be generated by the imagination process, which would lead to a change in actual performance on a task. Subjects (N = 147) were asked to explain either success or failure on the Stroop color-word task or to explain a neutral event. Each subject then completed either an easy or a difficult Stroop color-word task. An interaction was obtained between the difficulty of list and type of explanation variables. In the difficult list condition, subjects who imagined and explained success or failure committed significantly more errors than subjects who explained a neutral event. It was concluded that arousal might be produced by the imagination process and lead to changes in task performance when success and failure are used as standards of performance.