Self‐regulation strategies improve self‐discipline in adolescents: benefits of mental contrasting and implementation intentions

Abstract

Adolescents struggle with setting and striving for goals that require sustained self‐discipline. Research on adults indicates that goal commitment is enhanced by mental contrasting (MC), a strategy involving the cognitive elaboration of a desired future with relevant obstacles of present reality. Implementation intentions (II), which identify the action one will take when a goal‐relevant opportunity arises, represent a strategy shown to increase goal attainment when commitment is high. This study tests the effect of mental contrasting combined with implementation intentions (MCII) on successful goal implementation in adolescents. Sixty‐six 2nd‐year high school students preparing to take a high‐stakes exam in the fall of their third year were randomly assigned to complete either a 30‐minute written mental contrasting with implementation intentions intervention or a placebo control writing exercise. Students in the intervention condition completed more than 60% more practice questions than did students in the control condition. These findings point to the utility of directly teaching to adolescents mental contrasting with implementation intentions as a self‐regulatory strategy of successful goal pursuit.

Keywords:

• goal setting
• academic performance
• intervention
• adolescent
• self‐regulation

Notes

1. The PSAT is the Preliminary SAT, which was formerly known as the Scholastic Assessment Test.

2. Because the distribution of completed practice questions was skewed right for both the experimental and control groups, we used a square root transformation of practice questions to approximate a normal distribution. This transformed variable was used in statistical analyses but, for ease of interpretation, untransformed values were used to report means.