The Mind of a Goal Achiever: Using Mental Contrasting and Implementation Intentions to Achieve Better Outcomes in General and Special Education

The mind and brain sciences have uncovered important details about the mechanisms underlying goal attainment, including strategies to overcome obstacles. A suite of self-regulatory strategies have made relatively little contact with education, despite cost-effective methods and striking results in both educational contexts as well as other areas that impinge, often negatively, on educational outcomes (e.g., nutrition, addictions). This review starts with a description of two of these strategies: (1) implementation intentions, in which a goal is framed as an IF-THEN statement where the IF defines the situational trigger or context and the THEN defines the behavioral response; (2) mental contrasting, in which an individual frames a goal as a contrast between a future wish and a current obstacle. Part 2 reviews the empirical literature as it pertains to education. Part 3 concludes with a discussion of future directions, including limitations and extensions to populations with mental health challenges.