How beliefs shape thoughts

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This research explores how implicit theories influence goal setting, particularly through the lens of fantasy realization theory. We investigated how these theories affect individuals’ perceptions of their wishes and the self-regulatory modes they employ during goal setting. People generally fall into two categories regarding their beliefs about abilities: incremental theorists, who view abilities as malleable, and entity theorists, who see them as fixed. Our findings indicate that these implicit theories shape the types of goals individuals set—specifically, performance versus learning goals—and also influence their goal-setting processes. Oettingen identifies four self-regulatory modes: mental contrasting, indulging in the desired future, dwelling in the present reality, and reverse contrasting. Our observations revealed that incremental theorists tend to favor modes focused on the desired future (mental contrasting and indulging) over those centered on present reality (dwelling and reverse contrasting). Additionally, only incremental theorists experienced the benefits of mental contrasting as a tool for transforming wishes into binding goals, unlike entity theorists. Overall, the results demonstrate that implicit theories not only guide the selection of self-regulatory modes but also affect the efficacy of mental contrasting in enhancing goal commitment.