Mentally contrasting a desired future with reality is a self-regulation strategy that helps people effectively pursue important personal wishes. People with higher self-regulation skills are more likely to spontaneously use mental contrasting. Because one central cognitive function underlying self-regulation is working memory capacity, we investigated whether people with low rather than high working memory capacity are less likely to spontaneously use mental contrasting. Study 1 provided correlational evidence that participants with lower working memory capacity, as measured by the Operation-Span Task, were less likely to use mental contrasting when elaborating an important interpersonal wish. Study 2 provided experimental evidence that manipulating low working memory capacity by inducing cognitive load (vs. no load) led fewer participants to use mental contrasting. The findings have theoretical implications by illuminating the processes that impede mental contrasting, and they have applied implications for understanding how to foster the use of mental contrasting in everyday life.

在心理上将理想的未来与现实进行对比是一种自我调节策略，可以帮助人们有效地追求重要的个人愿望。自我调节能力较高的人更有可能自发地使用心理对比。由于自我调节的一项核心认知功能是工作记忆能力，因此我们研究了工作记忆能力低的人是否比工作记忆能力高的人更不可能自发地使用心理对比。研究 1 提供了相关证据，表明根据操作跨度任务测量，工作记忆能力较低的参与者在阐述重要的人际愿望时不太可能使用心理对比。研究 2 提供的实验证据表明，通过诱导认知负荷（相对于无负荷）来控制低工作记忆容量会导致更少的参与者使用心理对比。这些发现通过阐明阻碍心理对比的过程具有理论意义，并且对于理解如何在日常生活中促进心理对比的使用具有应用意义。