Gabriele Oettingen

Gabriele Oettingen, born in Munich in 1953, is a German academic psychologist who is a professor of psychology at New York University and at the University of Hamburg.

Trained originally as a behavioral biologist before turning to psychology, she has spent more than two decades building an experimental research program on motivation, self-regulation, and how people set and pursue goals.

Her best-known and most counterintuitive finding is that simply indulging in positive fantasies about a wished-for future, vividly imagining the goal as already achieved, can actually reduce the energy and effort people bring to attaining it.

In her account, mentally enjoying success “virtually” partially satisfies the wish, lowering arousal and commitment so that less hard work follows. This directly complicates the popular intuition that visualizing success is enough to produce it.

Her constructive answer is mental contrasting: deliberately pairing the imagined positive future with a clear-eyed look at the present obstacles standing in the way. When expectations of success are high, this contrast energizes goal pursuit; when they are low, it helps people disengage from unrealistic goals.

Combined with the implementation intentions (“if-then” plans) developed by her long-time collaborator and spouse Peter Gollwitzer, the method becomes Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions (MCII), which she packaged for the public as WOOP (Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan).

Her 2014 book Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation applies the approach to health, relationships, and work. Within the Atlas she is a crucial empirical corrective: the scientist whose work shows that visualization and desire need obstacle-contrasting and concrete planning in order to translate into real accomplishment.