Mental Simulation of Visceral States Affects Preferences and Behavior

Steinmetz, Janina; Risen, Jane L.

doi:10.1177/0146167217741315

Cited by 19 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Yet, one may wonder whether the temperature primes actually led participants to feel warmer versus colder, and whether this visceral state prompted the motivation to seek goal-relevant objects or activities. We believe so, as previous literature (e.g., Steinmetz et al 2018) has demonstrated that even looking at pictures of warm or cold environments can increase feelings of warmth or cold, respectively. Additionally, the findings of the pretest in Experiment 3 (see Footnote 2) suggest that the primes effectively altered the states of the participants.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 65%

“…Such a procedure has been shown to activate the concepts of warmth and cold, respectively, and to shift people's behavior and preferences accordingly (Halali et al 2017;Steinmetz and Posten 2017). More specifically, simulating being in a warm versus cold environment makes people actually experience physical warmth and cold, respectively similarly to actual experiences, which is why people's preferences and behavior are affected by the simulations (Steinmetz et al 2018). Subsequently, participants were presented with a list of actions that were related to cold, to warmth, or that were motivationally neutral.…”

Section: Experiments 2: Action Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both stories were written from a first-person perspective. As in Experiment 2, we expected that the simulation of the stories would lead people to actually feel warmer versus colder (building on Steinmetz et al 2018), which would subsequently affect their judgments. Specifically, the stories read:…”

Section: Materials and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Motivated level of construal: How temperature affects the construal level of state-relevant stimuli

Hansen

Steinmetz

2019

Motiv Emot

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Motivation affects perception, for example when people overestimate the psychological proximity of goal-relevant objects. Additionally, proximity maps onto more concrete (vs. abstract) construal. Following from these findings, we predicted that people construe goal-relevant stimuli more concretely than goal-irrelevant stimuli. Three experiments tested this idea (total N = 305). In Experiment 1, people who were warm (versus cold) grouped cold drinks into more and narrower categories, as cold drinks served their goal to cool off. In Experiment 2, heat simulations lead people to represent cooling actions (e.g., drinking cold water) in more concrete terms (i.e., as for how instead of why), whereas cold simulations lead people to represent warming actions in more concrete terms. In Experiment 3, participants evaluated heaters and ventilators based on concrete (i.e., single reviews) instead of abstract product information (i.e., overall ratings) if the product was motivationally relevant. These findings show that basic motivations can shift the level of abstraction at which people represent objects and actions.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 65%

Section: Experiments 2: Action Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Motivated level of construal: How temperature affects the construal level of state-relevant stimuli

Hansen

Steinmetz

2019

Motiv Emot

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“…Future studies may need to employ neuroimaging methods with higher temporal resolution to disambiguate these two hypotheses. Such studies may also employ pharmacological manipulation to increase NA tone activity, bio/neuro-feedback with pupil/LC activity, and mental simulation training (Steinmetz, Tausen, and Risen 2018) to increase arousal in a bottom-up fashion.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anticipatory energization revealed by pupil and brain activity guides human effort-based decision making

Kurniawan

Grueschow

Ruff

2020

Preprint

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17An organism's behavioral success is determined by its ability to mobilize resources to overcome 18 challenges. This ability involves the noradrenergic system, indicated by the finding that pupil-size 19 increases proportionally with currently exerted effort. However, humans can deliberate in advance 20 whether to engage in effort in the future. It remains unclear how effort is represented in such an 21 anticipatory fashion during decision-making. We investigated this by measuring pupil responses while 22 participants decided whether to accept or reject rewards that required effort execution after the 23 experiment. We found a faster rate of pupillary dilation in decisions to accept high-effort rewards. This 24 was accompanied by stronger fMRI activity in anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and anterior insula: When 25 accepting high-effort rewards, individuals with faster pupil dilation showed larger activity in these areas. 26Our results identify a brain process instantiating anticipatory arousal when humans prepare for a 27 physical challenge, potentially reflecting simulated energization. 28 30 31Should I go to the gym tonight or should I skip training? The ability to select actions by considering their 32 costs and benefits is crucial for survival in most animals 1 . Relatively unique to humans, however, is 33 the remarkable ability to take such choices in a purely anticipatory fashion, deciding about potential 34 future actions for which the potential benefits and costs are out of sight 2 . This ability is important for 35 planning as it allows us to deliberate for sequences of actions whether the effort of overcoming all 36 subsequent costs will be worth the associated rewards. 37Indeed, humans constantly simulate future rewards to make decisions. Cues associated with 38 reward trigger more vivid imagination of future events than neutral ones do 3 . There is also evidence 39 that we make better decisions by thinking about future events so vividly as if we were experiencing the 40 pleasure of the imagined rewards 4,5 . A decision to go to the gym might result from a mental simulation 41 of rewarding experiences such as the thrill from getting yelled at by that energetic spinning instructor 42 or the relaxing shower after the workout. Overwhelming evidence shows that both experienced and 43 anticipated rewards are signalled by activity in the dopaminergic (DA) system 6 , which also comprises 44 the core brain reward circuitry including the ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC 45 7 ). These reward signals are thought to reflect learned associations between reward cues and 46 reinforcers 6 . But what is remarkable from this wealth of research is the consensus that DA not only 47 signals experienced but also purely anticipated rewards, confirming its pivotal role in decision making. 48By contrast, very little is known about how simulation of physical effort could guide choice. Here 49 two possible scenarios have been proposed. First, a prevailing idea from the effort discounting literature...

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“…Firstly, our mental simulation relates directly to the decision task, rather than being disconnected from it, as in a CFM. Steinmetz, Tausen, and Risen (2018) noted that 'mentally simulating an experience by imagining it in detail can evoke the same consequences as actually experiencing it, albeit to a lesser extent' (p. 407). The mental simulation tested here also asks participants to imagine that their decision has gone badly wrong, resulting in poor organizational outcomes.…”

Section: Mental Simulations and Counterfactual Thinking In Group Decision-makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘I’ve Just Been Pretending I Can See This Stuff!’: Group member voice in decision‐making with a hidden profile

Nicholson

Hopthrow

Moura

et al. 2021

British J Social Psychol

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This research seeks to expand our knowledge of what underlies group performance in Hidden Profile decision tasks, adopting a mixed methods approach. We created a new mental simulation intervention designed to improve group decision outcomes and information exchange and tested it across two studies. We supplemented our quantitative statistical analysis with Thematic Analysis, to explore and better understand the motivations and utterances of individual group members, which we contend are key to increasing understanding of the challenges operating at individual and group levels in Hidden Profile decision tasks. Much group decision-making research uses quantitative methodologies, searching for causal explanations of why things happen as they do in group processes. As a subset of this area, existent Hidden Profile research is centred in the quantitative domain. Yet qualitative research can improve the understanding of group phenomena, such as communication style, which is important in groups' decision-making. To our knowledge, no Hidden Profile research has taken a similar approach, so this paper makes a unique contribution. Results indicated the mental simulation had a positive effect on information exchange and decision quality in a Hidden Profile hiring task.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Mental Simulation of Visceral States Affects Preferences and Behavior

Cited by 19 publications

References 41 publications

Motivated level of construal: How temperature affects the construal level of state-relevant stimuli

Motivated level of construal: How temperature affects the construal level of state-relevant stimuli

Anticipatory energization revealed by pupil and brain activity guides human effort-based decision making

‘I’ve Just Been Pretending I Can See This Stuff!’: Group member voice in decision‐making with a hidden profile

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