A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Mental Contrasting With Implementation Intentions on Goal Attainment

“…the heterogeneity of the effect size distribution was significant, and I2 described the percentage of total variation across studies due to heterogeneity rather than chance; 25, 50, and 75% were the boundaries for a low, medium, and high degree of heterogeneity, respectively (Higgins et al., 2003).”

“Implementation intention is an if–then plan that specifies when, where, and how the behavior will lead to the achievement of a goal (e.g., if situation y arises, then I will perform goal-directed behavior z to achieve goal x) (Gollwitzer, 1999).”

“First, in contrast to meta-analyses that included laboratory, related, and intervention studies that found medium to large effect size (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006), meta-analytical studies have found that mental contrasting interventions alone (Cross and Sheffield, 2019), or implementation intentions interventions a…”

“Therefore, it was necessary to combine multiple outcomes reported in one study so that only one effect size was obtained from each independent sample (Lipsey and Wilson, 2001; Ellis, 2010).”

“Expectations of success, perceived likelihood of attaining the desired outcome (i.e., general expectations, usually measured by “how likely do you think it is that you will attain your goal?”) moderate the effect of mental contrasting on goal pursuit (Oettingen, 2000; Oettingen et al., 2001).”

“Mental contrasting can not only lead to binding goals and provide goal commitment as a premise for implementation intentions (Sheeran et al., 2005) but also help people to identify obstacles in reality and to create non-conscious links between obstacles and instrumental behavior while engendering a…”

“…and Its Effects on Goal Attainment Several studies by Oettingen and colleagues found that thinking only about positive future outcomes decreases goal-relevant efforts, as well as the likelihood of goal achievement (e.g., Oettingen and Mayer, 2002; Kappes H. B. et al., 2012; Oettingen et al., 2016).”

“…contrasting a desired future with impeding reality can activate expectations of success: when expectations of success are high, people fully commit and pursue their goals; when expectations of success are low, people postpone or abandon the fulfillment of their wishes (Oettingen, 2000, 2012).”

“Adriaanse et al. (2011) found implementation intention interventions to have a moderate effect size for promoting the inclusion of healthy food items in one’s diet (Cohen’s d = 0.51) and smaller effects for diminishing unhealthy eating patterns (Cohen’s d = 0.29).”

“Implementation intentions promote accessibility of situation cues (Sheeran andWebb, 2004) and strengthen the links between the anticipated situation and the expected behavior so that, upon encountering the relevant cues, goal-relevant behavior would appear automatically (Webb and Sheeran, 2007).”

“, 2013), and mental contrasting alone or implementation intentions alone intervention studies found small-to-medium effect size (Belanger-Gravel et al., 2013; Carrero et al., 2019; Cross and Sheffield, 2019), MCII interventions had a small-to-medium effect size on behavior change.”

“…attainment and explicitly required the participants to choose feasible goals for themselves (Stadler et al., 2009, 2010; Adriaanse et al., 2010; Duckworth et al., 2013; Gawrilow et al., 2013; Houssais et al., 2013; Sailer et al., 2015; Fritzsche et al., 2016), and participants’ expectations of…”

“The results of moderator analysis should be interpreted with caution due to the small number of studies included in the meta-analysis and covarying moderator variables across studies (Lipsey, 2003), which may cause misleading results in analyses focusing on single moderator variables.”

“After imagining a positive future, thinking about obstacles that impede the realization of wishes (i.e., mental contrasting) can transform people’s positive fantasies into binding goals, urging them to overcome obstacles in reality to attain their goals (Oettingen, 2000).”

“Both laboratory experiments and field studies have shown that combining mental contrasting with implementation intentions is more effective in goal pursuit than either mental contrasting or implementation intentions (Adriaanse et al., 2010; Kirk et al., 2013).”

“MCII intervention studies increased in recent years, and most studies have shown that it can improve goal attainment (e.g., Stadler et al., 2009, 2010).”

“MCII intervention studies increased in recent years, and most studies have shown that it can improve goal attainment (e.g., Stadler et al., 2009, 2010).”

“A concrete plan would promote recognition of the planned cues but would make it more difficult to notice other available cues, and strictly rigid self-regulation strategies may hinder goal attainment (Parks-Stamm et al., 2007).”

“…attainment and explicitly required the participants to choose feasible goals for themselves (Stadler et al., 2009, 2010; Adriaanse et al., 2010; Duckworth et al., 2013; Gawrilow et al., 2013; Houssais et al., 2013; Sailer et al., 2015; Fritzsche et al., 2016), and participants’ expectations of…”

“…high-stakes exams (Duckworth et al., 2011) and completing online courses (Kizilcec and Cohen, 2017); the health domain, such as physical activity (Christiansen et al., 2010), healthy diet (Adriaanse et al., 2010), and stress management (Gollwitzer et al., 2018); the relationship domain, such as…”

“A meta-analysis by Da Silva et al. (2018) found that an implementation intention intervention without reinforcement had no significant effect on adult physical activity, while an implementation intention intervention with reinforcement had a small to medium effect size on adult physical activity.”

“On the one hand, face-to-face interventions could promote effectiveness by increasing interpersonal relationship (Elder et al., 2005).”

“For example, Kizilcec and Cohen (2017) found that MCII could increase individual goal attainment (massive open online courses, abbreviated by MOOCs, completion rates) in individualist Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 2 May 2021 | Volume 12 | Article 565202 cultures but not collectivist…”

“In terms of cognitive mechanisms, mental contrasting can strengthen non-conscious mental associations between the future and reality (Kappes and Oettingen, 2014), help individuals identify relevant obstacles in their current reality (Kappes et al., 2013), and increase the implicit mental link…”

“, 2013), and mental contrasting alone or implementation intentions alone intervention studies found small-to-medium effect size (Belanger-Gravel et al., 2013; Carrero et al., 2019; Cross and Sheffield, 2019), MCII interventions had a small-to-medium effect size on behavior change.”

“…for implementation intentions (Sheeran et al., 2005) but also help people to identify obstacles in reality and to create non-conscious links between obstacles and instrumental behavior while engendering a readiness for the establishment of implementation intentions (Kappes et al., 2012b, 2013).”

“In the first group, studies compared MCII intervention conditions with no treatment control conditions (e.g., Houssais et al., 2013; Gollwitzer et al., 2018).”

“We expect that the MCII intervention effect on goal attainment might be small to medium, although mental contrasting with implementation intentions is more effective on goal pursuit than either mental contrasting or implementation intention (Adriaanse et al., 2010; Kirk et al., 2013).”

“MCII interventions have been used in four different goal domains, namely, the academic domain, such as preparing for high-stakes exams (Duckworth et al., 2011) and completing online courses (Kizilcec and Cohen, 2017); the health domain, such as physical activity (Christiansen et al., 2010), healthy…”

“On the one hand, most intervention studies in this meta-analysis were designed to promote goal attainment and explicitly required the participants to choose feasible goals for themselves (Stadler et al., 2009, 2010; Adriaanse et al., 2010; Duckworth et al., 2013; Gawrilow et al., 2013; Houssais et al., 2013; Sailer et…”

“…required the participants to choose feasible goals for themselves (Stadler et al., 2009, 2010; Adriaanse et al., 2010; Duckworth et al., 2013; Gawrilow et al., 2013; Houssais et al., 2013; Sailer et al., 2015; Fritzsche et al., 2016), and participants’ expectations of success in the existing…”

“…for implementation intentions (Sheeran et al., 2005) but also help people to identify obstacles in reality and to create non-conscious links between obstacles and instrumental behavior while engendering a readiness for the establishment of implementation intentions (Kappes et al., 2012b, 2013).”

“Participants’ behavior change was assessed using subjective self-report measures, such as self-reported physical activity (Marquardt et al., 2017) or unhealthy snacking (Adriaanse et al., 2010), and objective measurement, such as attendance to a class session (Sailer et al., 2015) or course…”

“this finding is that the effects of mental contrasting or implementation intentions are moderated by other variables; for example, mental contrasting can encourage individuals with low expectations of success to let go their wishes (Oettingen and Cachia, 2016), and implementation intentions has no promoting effect on…”

“…2010; Kirk et al., 2013), and mental contrasting alone or implementation intentions alone intervention studies found small-to-medium effect size (Belanger-Gravel et al., 2013; Carrero et al., 2019; Cross and Sheffield, 2019), MCII interventions had a small-to-medium effect size on behavior change.”

“Third, cultural differences in the effects of MCII strategies should be considered (Oettingen, 1997; Oettingen et al., 2008).”

“Third, cultural differences in the effects of MCII strategies should be considered (Oettingen, 1997; Oettingen et al., 2008).”

“…(Stadler et al., 2009, 2010; Adriaanse et al., 2010; Duckworth et al., 2013; Gawrilow et al., 2013; Houssais et al., 2013; Sailer et al., 2015; Fritzsche et al., 2016), and participants’ expectations of success in the existing studies were all above 4 points (7 points), which was above the…”

“…to choose feasible goals for themselves (Stadler et al., 2009, 2010; Adriaanse et al., 2010; Duckworth et al., 2013; Gawrilow et al., 2013; Houssais et al., 2013; Sailer et al., 2015; Fritzsche et al., 2016), and participants’ expectations of success in the existing studies were all above…”

“Wittleder et al. (2019) found that MCII decreased the number of drinking days for people with hazardous drinking behavior, but not for people with non-hazardous drinking behavior, compared to the control group.”

“Besides, some MOOC learners might only be interested in a subset of the content within the MOOC, and as such, they might not have the intention to watch most of the lectures in the course (Wang & Baker, 2018).”

“Although evidence suggests this intervention facilitates goal attainment (Wang et al., 2021), little attention has been directed toward understanding the effects of MCII within the context of applied sport psychology.”

“MCII has been widely used as an intervention to encourage goal persistence in a variety of applied settings (for reviews, see Cross & Sheffield, 2019; Wang et al., 2021).”

“A recent meta-analysis found small to moderate ( g = .34) effect sizes of MCII on goal progress (Wang et al., 2021).”

“An implementation intentions exercise was designed to help participants anticipate and plan for the three biggest obstacles to putting their phone down while driving (26, 27).”

“30 Nonetheless, Cross and Sheffield found that MCII had a small ‐ to ‐ medium effect on health ‐ related behavior, comparable to a mental intervention's effect size.”

“Notably, MCII has exerted positive effects on other areas of behavioural change [64–66].”

“MC interventions exert small effects in the academic domain compared with other domains (Wang et al., 2021).”

“The literature on the utility of MCII has predominantly focused on health and academic contexts (Wang et al., 2021).”

“In a recent MC-II meta-analysis from broad behavior domains including health and education, one of the hypothesized reasons for varying effect sizes was varying levels of MC-II response quality (Wang et al. , 2021).”

“These goal setting activities are likely to increase the likelihood that implementation intentions will produce actual implementation (Locke & Latham, 2019; Wang et al., 2021).”

“MCII helps induce goal-directed behaviors in challenging or stressful contexts, including problematic alcohol drinking, smoking, and dieting (Cross and Sheffield, 2019; Wang et al., 2021; Webb et al., 2012).”

“Furthermore, prior research has not included autonomy support while teaching mental contrasting (Wang et al., 2021).”

“Past research has indi - cated that adopting a contingent backup plan type may be linked to implementation intentions, which are effective for goal attainment (Napolitano & Freund, 2016; Wang et al., 2021).”

“Systematic reviews show that mental contrasting without and with implementation intentions is an effective health behaviour change intervention [11, 12].”

“There is evidence that the mode of learning may affect the effect size, where facilitator-led is stronger than self-facilitated [44].”

“Recent research on mental contrasting with implementation intention (MCII) reports no significant difference in effect size between high ( g = 0.297) and low ( g = 0.481) goal attainability (Wang et al., 2021).”

“Implementation intentions have been shown to close the intention – behaviour gap and so increase goal attainment (Wang et al ., 2021).”

“…(Section 2), the increases in transilience are consistent with brief prospection exercises (e.g., episodic future thinking, best-possible-self) that heighten vividness and personal relevance, and with planning scaffolds akin to mental contrasting with implementation intentions [6, 23, 25, 38, 57].”

“Different ways of planning have been proposed and found to be effective in promoting goal-directed behaviors [9, 15, 28, 60].”

“…context-relevant examples (Figures S2 and S3 in Multimedia Appendix 1), guiding participants through an evaluation of the various applied examples, and establishing an implementation intention to use their preferred strategies when they become aware of symptoms discussed in module 1 [27,37,38].”

“Their results consistently show – while hopeful positive fantasizing alone did not help people reach their desired goals – two strategies did: mental contrasting and implementation intention (MCII) (Wang et al., 2021).”

“Researchers suggest shifting the focus from the past to the future by incorporating mental simulations of the future and performance targets [15, 21].”

“13,14 This leads to effective goal pursuit, 15,16 particularly in challenging contexts.”

“A prominent goal-based intervention demonstrated to be effective across contexts related to health, academic achievement, and pro-social behaviour is ‘mental contrasting plus implementation intentions’ (MCII) [7,8].”