Coffee and tea are two beverages commonly-consumed around the world. Therefore, there is much research regarding their physiological effects. However, less is known about their psychological meanings. Derived from a predicted lay association between coffee and arousal, we posit that exposure to coffee-related cues should increase arousal, even in the absence of actual ingestion, relative to exposure to tea-related cues. We further suggest that higher arousal levels should facilitate a concrete level of mental construal as conceptualized by Construal Level Theory. (...) In four experiments, we find that coffee cues prompted participants to see temporal distances as shorter and to think in more concrete, precise terms. Both subjective and physiological arousal explain the effects. We situate our work in the literature that connects food and beverage to cognition or decision-making. We also discuss the applied relevance of our results as coffee and tea are among the most prevalent beverages globally. (shrink)

If-then planning switches action control from goal-guided to stimulus-triggered action control. After reviewing the effects and mechanisms of planning in promoting goal attainment, this chapter suggests that little is known about its antecedents and explores a potential role for emotions as precursors to planning. The elicitors of discrete emotion prompt fine-tuned cognitive appraisal patterns that share important similarities with specific goal-relevant mindsets identified by the phase model of action. This chapter identifies how the experience of certain emotions leads people to (...) think in styles similar to different mindsets and review recent evidence that establishes differential planning for different emotions. It examines in particular sadness and anger, and finds that whereas the former yields more successful goal setting, the latter prompts more successful goal striving via the formation of plans. The implications of these findings offer intriguing possibilities for future research to consider the relevance and benefit of emotional experience in guiding behavior. (shrink)

Current selves wield all the power in intertemporal tradeoffs. Although one set of future selves will make similar tradeoffs in the future, another self – who we term the cumulative future self – falls on the receiving end of those dictated decisions. How current selves commune with the cumulative future self determines whether the former heed pleas, from the latter, for patience.