The Get Ready Mind-Set: How Gearing Up for

Later Impacts Effort Allocation Now

ANICK BOSMANS
RIK PIETERS
HANS BAUMGARTNER

People need to allocate their limited cognitive resources to current and future tasks.
We provide evidence that anticipating the resource demands of a future task creates
a “get ready mind-set” that mobilizes these resources. However, the mobilized re-
sources for the future task can carry over to unrelated current tasks. This implies
the counterintuitive notion that anticipating difficult tasks in the future leads to greater
effort expenditure on unrelated tasks in the present. We also demonstrate that re-
source carryover is particularly likely when consumers’ ability to separate tasks is
low, whereas resource conservation is more likely when ability to separate is high.

T his research examines if and how consumers’ expec-

tations about the demands that future tasks may impose
on their cognitive resources influence the allocation of these
resources to current tasks. That is, we explore how much
effort consumers will allocate to a task that they engage in
right now, knowing that it will be followed by a demanding
or simple task later. Recent studies have shown how the
actual effort allocated to current tasks influences perfor-
mance on later tasks (Vohs and Faber 2007), but it remains
unclear how anticipated future task demands affect perfor-
mance on unrelated current tasks. This is surprising in view
of the fact that people consecutively pursue different tasks
all the time and need to consider how much effort to expend
on a current task, knowing that it will be followed by later
tasks: thinking about the weekly grocery list before pre-
paring lunch, searching the Internet for a family holiday
location before making a decision about a home improve-
ment loan, or trying to come up with a creative birthday
gift before choosing a restaurant.
We propose that anticipating resource demands imposed
by a difficult future task may encourage the immediate mo-
Anick Bosmans (abosmans@uvt.nl) is assistant professor of marketing,
and Rik Pieters (pieters@uvt.nl) is professor of marketing, in the Marketing
Department, Tilburg University, Warandelaan 2, P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE
Tilburg, The Netherlands. Hans Baumgartner ( jxb14@psu.edu) is professor
of marketing and Charles and Lillian Binder Faculty Fellow in the Smeal
College of Business, Pennsylvania State University, 482 Business Building,
University Park, PA 16802. The authors thank Kathleen Vohs, the editors,
and three reviewers for insightful comments on previous drafts of this
article.
John Deighton served as editor and Laura Peracchio served as associate
editor for this article.
Electronically published October 20, 2009
98
bilization of cognitive resources, because people want to get
ready for the future task. Intuitively, one may expect that
this “get ready mind-set” will lead to attempts to expend
fewer resources on current tasks in an effort to conserve
resources for the difficult future task (Muraven, Shmueli,
and Burkley 2006). However, in the present research we
propose that getting ready for a future task may actually
increase rather than decrease effort expenditure on current
tasks, because the resources mobilized for future task de-
mands may inadvertently carry over to unrelated tasks in
the present. More specifically, the main purpose of this ar-
ticle is twofold: (1) to provide evidence in support of the
operation of the get ready mind-set and (2) to show that the
resources marshaled in anticipation of difficult future tasks
can indeed carry over to unrelated current tasks.
We do not assume that resource carryover will always be
the norm and allow for the possibility that in certain situ-
ations resource conservation will occur. Our second purpose
in this article is to examine a potential moderator of the
predicted effects, namely, a person’s ability to keep tasks
separate. That is, we propose that carryover of mobilized
resources will be more likely when people find it difficult
to separate tasks, either because of situational reasons (the
tasks are similar) or personal reasons (people are intrinsi-
cally bad at keeping things separate), whereas conservation
is more likely when ability to separate is high (because tasks
are dissimilar or people are intrinsically good at keeping
things separate).
GETTING READY FOR FUTURE
PERFORMANCE
We propose that difficult future tasks that are expected
to be resource demanding promote the activation of a get

䉷 2009 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc. ● Vol. 37 ● June 2010

All rights reserved. 0093-5301/2010/3701-0020$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/648520
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/37/1/98/1820706
by University of Florida user
on 09 July 2018
 THE GET READY MIND-SET
ready mind-set in which people mobilize the resources re-
quired for the execution of the future task. However, once
activated, these resources are not necessarily reserved for
the future task and instead may carry over to unrelated
current tasks, which leads to the somewhat counterintuitive
prediction that the anticipation of a difficult task in the future
leads to greater effort expenditure on unrelated tasks in the
present.
Although different in focus, research on the implemen-
tation mind-set is broadly consistent with the proposed pro-
cess. According to Gollwitzer and his colleagues (Gollwitzer
1990; Gollwitzer, Heckhausen, and Steller 1990), the im-
plementation of a chosen goal is associated with a partic-
ular cognitive orientation called an “implementation mind-
set,” which creates a special preparedness to efficiently
plan and execute the future task. Specifically, these authors
show that the prospect of implementing a future task makes
people more selective with respect to task-related versus
task-unrelated information and increases their sensitivity to
implementation-related procedures such as how, when, and
where to execute the intended task. Importantly, the acti-
vated procedural knowledge associated with an implemen-
tation mind-set has been found to transfer from one task to
another. For example, relative to participants in a control
group, those who were asked to plan the execution of a
future project (e.g., moving from home or terminating one’s
college education) reported more implementation-related
thoughts in an immediate, unrelated storytelling task (e.g.,
“The king asked himself how he could find a trusted person
who would stay home and protect his daughter”; Gollwitzer
et al. 1990, 1127).
Of course, the effective implementation of tasks requires
not only the activation of procedural knowledge involved
in planning and executing a chosen goal but also the allo-
cation of sufficient cognitive resources that allow successful
task completion (Locke and Latham 2006; Wright 1996).
We therefore specify analogously to the operation of an
implementation mind-set the operation of a get ready mind-
set. Although the idea that anticipating a future task will
activate a get ready mind-set is new and has not been directly
tested, to our knowledge, several findings in the literature
support the plausibility of such a mind-set. For instance,
when people were instructed that they would have to engage
in a demanding task, they exhibited higher levels of systolic
blood pressure and had higher heart rates than people who
were told that an easy task would follow (Contrada, Wright,
and Glass 1984). Also, neuroimaging research indicates that
anticipating a future task activates brain regions in the pre-
frontal cortex that are associated with executive control and
preparation of motor activity (Brass and von Cramon 2002).
In particular, it has been found that after task instructions
(but before actual task execution) there is increased acti-
vation of the anterior prefrontal cortex, and this activation
appears to be independent of the specific domain of the
anticipated task (e.g., verbal vs. spatial; Sakai and Pas-
singham 2003). These findings are consistent with the idea
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/37/1/98/1820706
by University of Florida user
on 09 July 2018
99
that the mere prospect of engaging in a difficult future task
makes people gear up by mobilizing the required resources.
CARRYOVER OF MOBILIZED
RESOURCES
How does the proposed get ready mind-set, which pre-
sumably prepares people for future task demands, influence
the allocation of cognitive resources to current tasks? At
first sight, you might think that expecting a difficult (vs.
easy) future task should activate attempts to conserve (vs.
expend) resources during unrelated current tasks. However,
several lines of research suggest that cognitive, affective,
and motivational states evoked by one context can readily
carry over to other, unrelated contexts. Then, expecting a
difficult future task should lead to working harder on an
unrelated current task. The previously cited research by
Gollwitzer et al. (1990) on the transfer of implementation
thoughts to an unrelated storytelling task provides the most
direct support for this. Indirect support for our hypothesis
comes from research on the effects of residual arousal in-
duced by earlier tasks on subsequent tasks. In that literature,
it is usually found that the excitation felt after physiological
exercises transfers to subsequent activities and may result
in increased aggressive behavior (Zillmann, Johnson, and
Day 1974) or sexual excitement (Cantor, Zillmann, and Bry-
ant 1975). In a consumer behavior context, residual phys-
iological arousal was found to affect information-processing
strategies (Sanbonmatsu and Kardes 1988). In a related,
albeit more general, vein, transfer effects have also been
reported in the mood literature, where moods experienced
in one situation may carry over to other contexts and influ-
ence decision making in that context (Pham 1998; Schwarz
and Clore 1983). The implication of these various streams
of research is that consumers may actually expend more
rather than less effort on unrelated current tasks when a
difficult (vs. easy) future task is anticipated, because re-
sources mobilized in preparation for a later difficult task
inadvertently carry over to earlier tasks.
The first three studies report evidence that anticipating a
difficult future task generates a get ready mind-set, in which
required cognitive resources are mobilized that are subse-
quently allocated to an unrelated current task. The final two
studies examine boundary conditions.
STUDY 1
This study tests the basic idea that more effort is allocated
to a current task (henceforth called the focal task) when a
difficult rather than easy future task is anticipated.
Method
Thirty-four undergraduate students participated in this
two-group experiment in return for monetary compensation
of i7. They were told that they would engage in two dif-
ferent tasks. First, concern with future task performance was
primed by asking participants to write a short essay about
 100
a personal (easy or difficult) task that they planned to carry
out in the near future. In the Easy Future Task condition,
participants wrote about a simple and routine task. In the
Difficult Future Task condition, they wrote about a difficult
and complex task. The instructions were (Difficult Future
Task instructions are in brackets):
We are currently investigating how people experience routine
[complex] tasks. Routine tasks are tasks that are relatively
simple, require no or little energy, and are relatively effort-
less. You do not become tired after performing a routine task.
[Complex tasks are tasks that are difficult, require a sub-
stantial amount of energy, and are relatively effortful. You
become tired after performing a complex task.] In this task
you are asked to describe—in as much detail as possible—a
routine [complex] task that you plan to carry out in the near
future (i.e., in a few moments or in a couple of hours). Think
about a task that you expect to be easy and effortless [difficult
and effortful].
Instructions asked to write as elaborately and detailed as
possible to ensure mind-set activation:
In the space below please describe as elaborately and in as
much detail as possible an easy, routine task [a difficult,
complex task] that you anticipate to carry out in the near
future. Also, discuss the reasons why you anticipate this task
to be easy [difficult] and why the task will require little or
no [a lot of] energy.
After completing the first study, participants were thanked
and asked to engage in a presumably unrelated second study,
which contained the focal task. In this focal task, participants
evaluated a new (fictitious) diet drink. The new product was
presented on a computer screen, and participants were in-
structed to consult as much information as necessary to
arrive at a good evaluation of the new product (adapted
from Martin et al. 1993). They could do so by clicking on
several “links” (eight in total) that contained information
about ingredients and manufacturer and consumer testi-
monials. Participants were instructed to click the “OK” but-
ton when they felt they had sufficient information to evaluate
the product. The number of information links consulted was
the measure of effort allocation. After completion, partici-
pants evaluated the new drink on four bipolar attitude items
(I like it/I dislike it, good/bad, positive/negative, desirable/
undesirable; alpha p .87), using response scales ranging
from 1 to 9.
Results
Two one-way ANOVAs were performed with evaluation
of the new drink and the number of information links con-
sulted as dependent variables. We report h2 values as a mea-
sure of effect size when F-values are significant, both here
and in subsequent studies. Participants evaluated the new
product equally favorably in the two Future Task Difficulty
conditions (F(1, 32) ! 1; Mdif f p 4.12 vs. Measy p 3.74).
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/37/1/98/1820706
by University of Florida user
on 09 July 2018
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
This is desirable because the information was identical, and
stimuli were not constructed so that exposure to more in-
formation would increase evaluation.
In support of our prediction, when participants wrote about
a difficult future task, they later consulted (in an unrelated
task) more information for purposes of evaluating the new
product compared to when they first wrote about an easy
future task: Mdif f p 6.65 versus Measy p 3.59 (F(1, 32)
p 9.64, p ! .01, h 2 p .23). These results support the op-
eration of a get ready mind-set and carryover of resources
to an unrelated current task: the more difficult the future
task was anticipated to be, the more effort participants ex-
pended on the current task.
STUDY 2
This study had two primary purposes. First, we wanted
to generalize the effects to a qualitatively different focal
task. Study 1 used performance on a convergent, analytical
thinking task (Guilford 1967) as the measure of effort in
the focal task. Participants evaluated a new product based
on various information about the product, and the number
of information links consulted was used as the effort mea-
sure. In study 2 we chose an effort measure that reflects a
more divergent, creative way of thinking, namely, idea gen-
eration about how to lose body weight. The number of sep-
arate ideas produced was taken as the measure of cognitive
effort.
Second, study 2 tested the idea that a get ready mind-set
influences not only quantitative but also qualitative aspects
of cognitive effort in task performance. Gollwitzer et al.
(1990) observed that people in an implementation mind-set
produced more thoughts about when and how a fictional
character in a storytelling task would act. Building on this,
we predicted that, in case of an anticipated difficult future
task, participants would not only generate a greater number
of ideas in the focal task but also produce more effort-related
(strength and energy) ideas and that these ideas would require
more effort to come up with as rated by external judges.
Method
Seventy-seven undergraduate students participated in this
two-group experiment in return for monetary compensation
of i7. They were informed that they would engage in two
different tasks and were randomly assigned to either the
Easy or Difficult Future Task condition. Future Task Dif-
ficulty was manipulated by instructing participants that one
of the tasks dealt with creativity in buying small (i.e., i1)
gifts. Participants were told that they would have to come
up with as many gifts as possible that one can buy for i1
for various occasions (birthday, Easter, etc.). In the Easy
Future Task condition, the task was described as rather easy
(most people had little difficulty coming up with several
ideas), whereas in the Difficult Future Task condition, the
task was described as difficult (most people found it hard
to come up with different ideas). After having received this
instruction, participants were told, “before we turn to this
 THE GET READY MIND-SET
gift-giving task, you will be asked to participate in another
study. More specifically, you will be asked to list ideas about
how to lose weight in a time span of 1 month.”
To gauge the effectiveness of the Future Task Difficulty
manipulation, participants indicated the expected difficulty
of the first (focal) task and second (future) task (“how dif-
ficult do you expect the first weight loss task to be?” and
“how difficult do you expect the second gift-listing task to
be?” respectively; both rated on 9-point scales ranging from
“not at all difficult” [1] to “very difficult” [9]).
Next, participants engaged in the “weight loss” idea gen-
eration task and were instructed as follows:
Imagine the following scenario: 1 month from now, you are
invited to a high school reunion. You haven’t seen your class-
mates for years, and you want to make a good impression.
One of your goals is to lose 6 pounds of weight by the time
you meet your former classmates.
In the space below, please describe in as much detail as
possible how you could lose 6 pounds in a time span of 1
month. Please list as many ideas as possible that would enable
you to do so.
The number of separate weight loss ideas was the quan-
titative effort measure. The qualitative effort measures were,
respectively, the number of effort-related ideas (i.e., explicit
mentions of effort and energy) and independent observer
ratings of effort (i.e., effort required to generate the ideas
as rated by independent judges). Specifically, the first mea-
sure of qualitative effort was the difference between the
number of high-effort ideas (e.g., hard work, costs a lot of
energy, is effortful, is difficult) and low-effort ideas (e.g.,
costs little energy, effortless, easy). The second measure was
the average score of 12 judges (trained PhD students) who
rated the effort that participants had put into formulating each
idea (10-point scale ranging from “very easy to come up with”
[1] to “very difficult to come up with” [10]; alpha p .94).
Results
A mixed between-/within-subjects ANOVA with Future
Task Difficulty as the between-subjects factor and Antici-
pated Difficulty level of the focal and future tasks as the
within-subjects factor tested the success of our manipulation.
In general, participants expected the future task to be more
difficult than the focal task (Mfut p 4.62 vs. Mfoc p 4.18;
F(1, 75) p 4.04, p ! .05). More important, and confirming
the success of the manipulation, a significant interaction ef-
fect was observed between our Future Task Difficulty ma-
nipulation and the Anticipated Difficulty measures: F(1, 75)
p 21.39, p ! .001. Participants in the Difficult Future Task
condition expected that the future task would be more dif-
ficult than participants in the Easy Future Task condition
(Mdiff p 5.84 vs. Measy p 3.40; F(1, 75) p 44.94, p ! .001,
h 2 p .38). In contrast and as expected, there was no dif-
ference in the expected difficulty level of the focal (first)
task (Mdiff p 4.38 vs. Measy p 3.98; F(1, 75) p 1.06, NS).
Consistent with our predictions, participants who antici-
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/37/1/98/1820706
by University of Florida user
on 09 July 2018
101
pated a difficult future task generated more dieting ideas than
participants who anticipated an easy future task: F(1, 75) p
6.61, p ! .05, h 2 p .08 (Mdiff p 3.97 vs. Measy p 3.08).
Also, participants in the Difficult Future Task condition had
more high effort-related thoughts than participants in the
Easy Future Task condition: F(1, 75) p 7.65, p ! .01, h2 p
.20 (Mdiff p .49 vs. Measy p ⫺.10). Furthermore, the inde-
pendent judges indicated that participants in the Difficult Fu-
ture Task condition, on average, had put more effort into
generating their ideas than participants in the Easy Future
Task condition: F(1, 75) p 13.74, p ! .001, h 2 p .16 (Mdiff
p 2.36 vs. Measy p 1.84).
These results demonstrate the hypothesized carryover of
resources on both quantitative and qualitative measures of
cognitive effort in a task that requires divergent thinking.
Moreover, people in the easy and difficult future task con-
ditions did not differ in their judgments of anticipated effort
required for the focal (current) task, but they did differ sig-
nificantly in the amount of effort that they actually expended
on the focal task. While gearing up for a difficult future
task, they worked harder on the current task.
Although our studies show that resources mobilized for
a difficult later task can carry over to an unrelated earlier
task, they do not provide direct evidence about the process
hypothesized to account for the effect. Study 3 aims to pro-
vide such evidence.
STUDY 3
We have argued that making people aware of a difficult
future task makes them gear up for this future task and
promotes a state of readiness to act. Alternatively, one might
argue that making people aware of a difficult later task cre-
ates an expectation that they would also have to work hard
on unrelated earlier tasks, thus increasing their motivation
to do well on these tasks. According to such an account,
the higher performance on the current task is due to raised
performance standards (Carver and Scheier 1998) rather
than resource carryover. A get ready mind-set would be
supported if information about the difficult future task pro-
moted a state of action readiness, even though their standards
of performance with respect to the current, focal task re-
mained unaffected.
Method
Forty undergraduate students participated in a two-group
study in return for a monetary compensation of i7. They
were informed that they would be participating in two (sup-
posedly) unrelated studies that were briefly described at the
beginning of the experimental session. Participants were told
that the first study would investigate participants’ ideas
about losing weight and that this would be followed by an
anagram study. Future Task Difficulty was manipulated by
telling participants that the second study would be a difficult
and complex (vs. simple and easy) task and that in an earlier
study only 10% (vs. 90%) of the participants were able to
recognize half of the anagrams. After having read the in-
 102
structions, participants were asked several questions about
the studies.
First, the effectiveness of the Future Task Difficulty ma-
nipulation was assessed as in the previous study (i.e., “how
difficult do you expect the first weight loss task to be?” and
“how difficult do you expect the second word recognition
task to be?”; both rated on 9-point scales ranging from “not
at all difficult” [1] to “very difficult” [9]).
In addition, participants’ readiness for the future task was
assessed with three items: “I feel ready to start working on
the future anagram task,” “I am well prepared for the future
anagram study,” and “I almost can’t wait to start working on
the future anagram task,” rated on 9-point scales ranging from
“totally disagree” (1) to “totally agree” (9) (alpha p .73).
Also, participants’ standard of performance concerning
the current task was measured with two items: “how much
effort do you think you will have to put into the first weight
loss study?” and “how hard do you plan to work on the first
weight loss study?” assessed with 9-point scales ranging
from “very little” (1) to “very much” (9) ( r p .25).
After completing the questions, participants were told
that, due to unexpected conditions, there was no need to
participate in the studies. They were debriefed and thanked.
Results
Successful manipulation of Future Task Difficulty should
result in higher ratings of anticipated difficulty of the future
task when this task was presented as difficult rather than
easy, whereas no effect on the expected difficulty level of
the first (focal) task should be observed. This is indeed what
we found. A mixed between-/within-subjects ANOVA on
the manipulation checks, with Future Task Difficulty as a
between-subjects factor and Anticipated Difficulty level of
the focal and future tasks as a within-subjects factor, indi-
cated a main effect of both the Future Task Difficulty ma-
nipulation (F(1, 38) p 5.64, p ! .05; Mdiff p 5.59 vs. Measy
p 4.73; h 2 p .13) and the two measures of Anticipated
Difficulty level (F(1, 38) p 7.68, p ! .01; Mfut p 5.73 vs.
Mfoc p 4.65; h 2 p .17). More interesting, and supporting the
successful manipulation of Future Task Difficulty, there was
a significant interaction effect: F(1, 38) p 11.20, p ! .01,
h 2 p .23. Participants in the Difficult Future Task condition
expected the future (second) task to be more difficult than
participants in the Easy Future Task condition did (Mdiff p
6.71 vs. Measy p 4.63; F(1, 38) p 19.69, p ! .001), whereas
there was no difference in the expected difficulty level of the
focal (first) task (Mdif f p 4.48 vs. Measy p 4.84; F(1, 38) !
1, NS).
Importantly, and supporting the proposed get ready mind-
set account, participants who anticipated a difficult future
task felt more ready to start working on this task (Mdiff p
6.76 vs. Measy p 5.85; F(1, 38) p 5.22, p ! .05, h 2 p .12).
In contrast, the prospect of engaging in a difficult future
task did not raise participants’ standards of performance for
working on the focal task. In fact, if anything, the opposite
result was obtained, with participants in the Difficult Future
Task condition planning to work somewhat less hard on the
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/37/1/98/1820706
by University of Florida user
on 09 July 2018
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
focal task (Mdiff p 5.14 vs. Measy p 5.86; F(1, 38) p 3.38,
p ! .07, h 2 p .08).
Together, the first three studies provide evidence that an-
ticipating a difficult future task activates a get ready mind-
set that prepares people to act (study 3) and that the resources
mobilized can carry over to a current, focal task (studies 1
and 2). These findings are not due to the fact that the an-
ticipated difficulty level of the future task informs people
about the difficulty level of the current task or that expecting
a difficult later task establishes a higher standard of per-
formance that is applied to all tasks, including the earlier
ones (study 3).
CARRYOVER VERSUS CONSERVATION
OF MOBILIZED RESOURCES
We presented evidence that cognitive resources mobilized
in preparation for difficult future tasks readily carry over to
unrelated current tasks. Although one may argue that re-
source carryover is a default, it does not necessarily occur.
In fact, if mental effort is regarded as a scarce resource, it
would seem to be more economical to conserve resources
on a current task when a difficult future task is anticipated.
The question thus arises when carryover of cognitive re-
sources does not occur and conservation is more likely.
Carryover effects are believed to occur because people
generally have difficulty separating the experiences asso-
ciated with different events (Pham 1998), that is, to keep
things separate. As a result, experiences due to one event
are sometimes misattributed to another, unrelated event. One
determinant of ability to separate is the distinctiveness of
the situations involved. That is, the likelihood that experi-
ences carry over should decrease as the perceived distinc-
tiveness of situations increases. To illustrate, Schwarz and
Clore (1983) observed that the effects of temporary mood
states induced by current weather conditions on judgments
of life satisfaction disappeared when people were made
aware that their mood might be caused by these weather
conditions. In the present context, one may expect that the
distinctiveness of the current and future tasks will determine
whether carryover or conservation is more likely. By default
(as shown in the first three studies), and particularly when
the two tasks are similar, resources mobilized for a difficult
future task should transfer to unrelated intervening tasks.
However, when people are specifically alerted to the fact
that the current and future tasks are dissimilar, they should
be more conscious of the fact that the resources were actually
mobilized for the future task, and they should thus be better
able at conserving marshaled resources for future use. There-
fore, anticipating a difficult future task should lead to de-
creased performance on a current task when the current and
future tasks are dissimilar. Task similarity is a situational
factor that determines how difficult future tasks influence
effort expenditure on current tasks.
A personal factor with comparable effects is people’s in-
trinsic ability to keep things separate. Whereas some people
tend to look at information in an interdependent, holistic
 THE GET READY MIND-SET
way by focusing on the possible connections between var-
ious components and features, others are inclined to process
information in a more independent, analytic way by focusing
on the separate components instead of the whole (Nisbett
et al. 2001; Riding and Cheema 1991). Interdependent ver-
sus independent processing styles have been found to affect
performance in a wide range of domains, including percep-
tion, cognition, and interpersonal behavior. For example,
independents are more likely to ignore contextual informa-
tion (Kitayama et al. 2003) and are less likely to make
connections between various elements of the environment
(Monga and John 2007). Given interdependents’ tendency
to process information in a holistic, global way, they should
be particularly susceptible to carryover effects of mobilized
resources, because they are less able to discriminate between
tasks. In contrast, since independents tend to process infor-
mation in an analytic, discrete way, they should be better
at discriminating between resources available for future ver-
sus present task demands. Therefore, and comparable to the
situation with dissimilar tasks, carryover effects are less
likely, and independents may, in fact, conserve resources
for future tasks, which means that performance on earlier
tasks will be lower.
Study 4 tests the role of task similarity in determining
whether carryover or conservation of resources will occur
in intervening tasks, and study 5 investigates the moderating
influence of individual differences in interdependent versus
independent processing styles.
STUDY 4
This study tests the hypothesis that resource carryover
occurs when the future and current tasks are perceived to
be similar, and resource conservation occurs when the future
and current tasks are perceived to be dissimilar.
Method
Fifty-nine undergraduate students participated in this 2
(Future Task Difficulty: easy vs. difficult) # 2 (Perceived
Task Similarity: similar vs. dissimilar) full factorial between-
subjects design for a monetary compensation of i7.
Perceived Task Similarity was manipulated by instructing
participants that both tasks that they would engage in were
similar or dissimilar in terms of psychological processes and
resource demands. Participants in the Similar Task condition
read the following:
You will participate in a number of consumer studies that
are all related to each other. There will be a word recognition
study that aims to investigate how creative consumers are
with letters and words. Also, there will be a dieting study,
investigating how creative consumers are when losing weight.
All studies draw on similar psychological processes.
In the Dissimilar Task condition, participants read the fol-
lowing:
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/37/1/98/1820706
by University of Florida user
on 09 July 2018
103
You will participate in a number of consumer studies that
are all unrelated to each other. There will be a word recog-
nition study that aims to investigate consumers’ attentional
processes. There will also be a dieting study investigating
how creative consumers are when losing weight. These stud-
ies draw on different psychological processes.
Future Task Difficulty was manipulated by instructing
participants that the upcoming consumer task would be fol-
lowed by an anagram task that was experienced as either
difficult (in the Difficult Future Task condition) or easy (in
the Easy Future Task condition) by most participants in an
earlier study. Participants received an anagram training task
that allowed them to practice the anticipated future task for
a time period of 5 minutes. This was done to help people
mentally simulate the future task (Jeannerod and Decety
1995) and to encourage activation of the get ready mind-
set, consistent with Gollwitzer’s idea that mind-set effects
are more likely to occur after a training task (Brandstätter
and Frank 2002; Gollwitzer et al. 1990).
The consumer tasks you will be participating in will be fol-
lowed by an anagram task, where we investigate how con-
sumers convert meaningless letters into meaningful words.
This task is difficult [easy]. An earlier study indicated that
only 10% of the participants were able to recognize half of
the anagrams [90% of the participants were able to recognize
half of the anagrams].
For organizational reasons, we will conduct this task at the
end of the session. However, in order to give you an idea of
what this task will be like, we will present you with a number
of anagram problems right now. This will give you an op-
portunity to practice the upcoming anagram task.
Participants were instructed that if an anagram was too
difficult, they could press the “enter” button on the keyboard
to proceed to the next one. Anagrams were presented on
the computer one by one from a list of 40 anagrams. Par-
ticipants’ performance on the practice anagram task was
measured by counting the number of correctly solved an-
agrams. Absence of performance differences in the practice
task reduces the likelihood that our future task instructions
may have activated different performance standards (Carver
and Scheier 1998).
Directly after the practice anagram task, participants were
given the same focal weight loss task as in study 2. The
number of separate ideas generated (thoughts) was taken as
the measure of cognitive effort. Participants did not perform
the future (anagram) task and were told that due to time
constraints there was insufficient time for this task.
Pretest
The success of the Perceived Task Similarity manipulation
was assessed in a pretest among 34 undergraduate students.
Half of them received the instructions from the High Per-
ceived Similarity condition, and the other half received the
instructions from the Low Perceived Similarity condition.
 104
They reported to what extent the anagram and weight loss
tasks were similar (using “both tasks are similar” and “both
tasks draw on similar psychological processes”; 9-point
scales, alpha p .72). As expected, participants who received
the similar task instructions rated both tasks as more similar
than participants who received the dissimilar task instruc-
tions (Msim p 4.90 vs. Mdis p 3.68; F(1, 32) p 6.52, p !
.05, h 2 p .17).
Results
Neither the main effects of Future Task Difficulty and
Perceived Task Similarity nor their interaction affected the
number of correctly solved or total attempted anagrams dur-
ing the practice task (all p’s 1 .20; Mcor p 10.51, Mtotal p
15.80). This argues against the possibility that Future Task
Difficulty instructions activated different performance stan-
dards.
There was a significant main effect of Perceived Task
Similarity on the number of dieting ideas: when the focal
and future tasks were presented as being dissimilar, partic-
ipants listed more dieting ideas than when the tasks were
presented as being similar (F(1, 55) p 4.78 , p ! .05, h2 p
.08). The main effect of Future Task Difficulty was not
significant ( F(1, 55) ! 1). More important, and consistent
with expectations, there was a significant interaction effect
between Future Task Difficulty and Perceived Task Similarity
(F(1, 55) p 12.36, p ! .001, h 2 p .18). Figure 1 shows that
when tasks were presumably similar, participants formulated
more unique dieting ideas during the focal task when they
anticipated a difficult rather than easy future task: F(1, 55)
p 3.99, p p .05 (Mdiff p 4.00 vs. Measy p 3.00). Con-
versely, when tasks were presumably dissimilar, participants
allocated more effort to the focal task and listed more dieting
ideas when they anticipated an easy compared to a difficult
future task: F(1, 55) p 8.90, p ! .01 (Mdiff p 3.53 vs. Measy
p 5.00).
When the focal and future tasks were supposedly similar,
performance on the focal task was higher when a difficult
as compared to an easy future task was anticipated, which
is consistent with resource carryover. In contrast, when the
focal and future tasks were supposedly dissimilar, perfor-
mance on the focal task was lower when a difficult as com-
pared to an easy future task was anticipated, which is con-
sistent with resource conservation.
STUDY 5
Study 5 aimed to replicate the pattern of results of study
4 using an alternative measure of cognitive effort and a
different operationalization of ability to separate tasks,
namely, individual differences in independent versus inter-
dependent processing styles. Given independents’ tendency
to process information in a discrete, analytic way, we ex-
pected them to be better able to discriminate between re-
sources available for future versus present task demands.
As a result, resource carryover should be less likely for
independents. In fact, if independents are able to manage
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/37/1/98/1820706
by University of Florida user
on 09 July 2018
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
FIGURE 1
MEAN NUMBER OF DIETING IDEAS AS A FUNCTION OF
FUTURE TASK DIFFICULTY AND PERCEIVED
TASK SIMILARITY (STUDY 4)
NOTE.—Error bars indicate +/⫺ one standard error of the mean.
their resources in a more economical fashion, they should
conserve resources when the anticipated difficulty of the
future task is high. Study 5 tested this prediction.
Method
Sixty-seven undergraduate students participated in this 2
(Future Task Difficulty: easy vs. difficult) # 2 (Processing
Style: independents vs. interdependents) full factorial be-
tween-subjects design for a monetary compensation of i7.
Future Task Difficulty was manipulated as in study 4 by
informing participants that the upcoming consumer study
would be followed by an anagram task that was presented
as easy or difficult. As in the previous study, participants
engaged in a training task in which they were asked to
practice on a number of anagrams for 5 minutes.
Immediately after the training anagram task, participants
received the same focal product evaluation task as in study
1, with the number of information links consulted as the
dependent variable. Again, participants did not perform the
future (anagram) task, supposedly because there was not
enough time left.
The evaluation task was followed by a number of filler
tasks, and, at the end of the experimental session, individual
differences in interdependent versus independent Processing
Style were assessed. Independents are characterized by
higher levels of perceptual flexibility than interdependents
and are better able to separate relevant from irrelevant per-
ceptual information. Therefore, independents are more pro-
ficient at separating figure from ground, have a greater ten-
dency to focus on details instead of the whole, and are better
able to ignore irrelevant perceptual information (Kitayama
et al. 2003). Therefore, we assessed independent versus in-
terdependent Processing Style using three visual reaction
time (RT) tasks, in which participants had to separate rel-
evant from irrelevant stimulus information. The RTs in the
 THE GET READY MIND-SET
three tasks served as measure of independent (low RTs)
versus interdependent (high RTs) Processing Style (as in
Witkin 1950).
In the first RT task, participants saw a black-and-white
map of the Mediterranean Sea. Contrary to what people
expect to see when looking at geographical images, the black
areas represented the water, and the white areas represented
the land masses. Because people are used to seeing fore-
grounds (the land mass) in black and backgrounds (the wa-
ter) in white, interpretation of this map requires efficient
figure-ground switching. Participants were instructed to in-
terpret the image as quickly as possible and to indicate their
answer on a 10-category response scale (with the categories
cow, mountains, dog, tree, Mediterranean Sea, naked woman,
man playing the sax, two men playing guitar, face of a woman,
two people in love).
In the second RT task, participants saw an ambiguous
image that can be interpreted as either a woman’s face or
a saxophone player. One of the two interpretations is always
dominant. Again, participants were instructed to recognize
as quickly as possible the image shown in the picture, using
the 10-category scale of the first task. After participants had
recognized one of the two images (i.e., either the sax player
or the woman’s face), they were asked to take another look
at the picture in order to try to find the other image. This
not only forces them to switch back and forth between figure
and ground but also requires them to ignore the perceptual
features that were informative for recognizing the first im-
age. Only the latter RT was incorporated into the interde-
pendent-independent Processing Style measure.
The third RT task used Currier and Ives’s The Puzzled
Fox, which displays a fox (foreground) in a forest (back-
ground). A number of other animals are hidden in the forest,
which can only be recognized when focusing on the details
of the background. Participants were instructed to try to find
the image of a hidden horse as quickly as possible. Fast
identification of the horse requires separation of, and switch-
ing between, figure (fox) and ground (forest) to focus on
the details of the background and to look beyond the figure
as a whole.
The sum of the weighted RTs on the three tasks indicates
interdependent versus independent Processing Style, using
the first principal factor from a principal components anal-
ysis (Woltman-Elpers, Wedel, and Pieters 2003). Lower
scores (fast reactions) on the measure reflect a more inde-
pendent Processing Style and higher scores (slow reactions)
a more interdependent Processing Style, hereafter simply
labeled Processing Style.
Results
As in study 4, neither the main effect of Future Task
Difficulty and Processing Style nor their interaction affected
the number of correctly solved anagrams during the practice
task (all p’s 1 .27; Mcor p 14.15, Mtotal p 19.69).
Processing Style (continuous), Future Task Difficulty (⫺1
p easy, 1 p difficult), and their product were the three in-
dependent variables in a regression analysis that tested our
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/37/1/98/1820706
by University of Florida user
on 09 July 2018
105
predictions. The number of information links consulted was
the dependent variable. The main effects for Processing
Style (b p .08, t p .67, p p .51) and Future Task Difficulty
(b p .06, t p .45, p p .65) were insignificant, but the pre-
dicted interaction effect was significant and with the right
sign (b p .38, t p 2.34, p p .02; model R 2 p .09). Spot-
light analyses at ⫺/+ 1 SD from the median score on Pro-
cessing Style revealed that for independents the effect of Fu-
ture Task Difficulty was in the predicted direction but not
significant (b p ⫺.80, t p ⫺1.35, p p .18; means of Measy
p 4.85 and M diff p 3.26), whereas for interdependents the
difference was significant and in the predicted direction
(b p 1.17, t p 1.98, p ! .05; means of Measy p 2.32 and
Mdiff p 4.67). Figure 2 shows that the more interdependent
people’s processing style is, the more likely they are to work
more on the intermediate task when the future task is difficult
and to work less when the future task is easy. Independents
did not exhibit this resource carryover and used their re-
sources in a more economical fashion, showing signs of
resource conservation.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
Many tasks are knowingly executed sequentially, such
that consumers may already be thinking about a task to be
done in the future but in the meanwhile have to engage in
some other task in the present. Consumers make a list of
ways to diet before checking out a video to watch with the
kids, or evaluate products online prior to generating ideas
for a birthday gift to buy, and so on. The question, then, is
if and how the anticipated resource demands of the future
task influence effort expenditure and performance on the
current task.
Building on work about implementation mind-sets and
task preparation, we proposed that when anticipating diffi-
cult future tasks, people mobilize resources in preparation.
An interesting and at first counterintuitive implication of
this get ready mind-set is that the resources marshaled in
FIGURE 2
MEAN NUMBER OF INFORMATION LINKS CONSULTED
AS A FUNCTION OF FUTURE TASK DIFFICULTY AND
PROCESSING STYLE (STUDY 5)
 106
preparation for difficult future tasks may carry over to un-
related current tasks. We observed and replicated this re-
source carryover effect across a variety of manipulations of
future task difficulty (anticipating simple or complex future
personal tasks; generating ideas for i1 gifts, described to
be easy or difficult; anticipating working on easy or difficult
anagrams) and effort measures (amount of product infor-
mation consulted, quantity, and quality of idea generation).
The present research contributes to the literature in several
ways. It is, to our knowledge, the first to show that antic-
ipatory responses to impending tasks can systematically in-
fluence the execution of unrelated intervening tasks. Our
results indicate that difficult future tasks encourage the mo-
bilization of resources, which can carry over to unrelated
tasks in the present. Furthermore, just as cognitive proce-
dures associated with an implementation mind-set may
transfer to unrelated tasks, the mobilized resources promoted
by the get ready mind-set can carry over to earlier tasks.
Our results also demonstrate that the carryover of resources
is moderated by people’s ability to separate tasks because
it vanishes when the perceived distinctiveness between tasks
is high or when people are naturally more proficient at keep-
ing tasks separate. The present research also contributes to
the misattribution literature in that it suggests that people
may misattribute their experiences to the wrong situation
not only on a post hoc basis but also on an ex ante basis.
That is, whereas the misattribution literature has examined
how current experiences affect the evaluation of unrelated
later events (e.g., “I feel aroused, so the situation must be
exciting”), we focus on how anticipated future activities
affect the execution of unrelated current events (e.g., “I feel
ready, so I am going to work hard”).
Finally, by investigating the moderating impact of indi-
viduals’ ability to separate tasks, our findings shed new light
on the seemingly incompatible finding that people some-
times try to conserve resources for future tasks in an effort
to deal with the limited nature of their scarce resources. In
general, but particularly under conditions where people were
not able to separate tasks, performance on the intervening
task was better, not worse, when people anticipated a de-
manding future task. On the other hand, we observed results
consistent with a conservation effect when people were able
to keep things separate due to situational or personal condi-
tions.
Could it be that, as suggested by a reviewer, our observed
effects are due to the fact that information about the diffi-
culty of the future task established different standards of
performance and that participants monitored their perfor-
mance on the focal task against this standard of performance
(i.e., “the future task is difficult, so I’ll have to work hard
on all tasks”)? A number of observations argue against this
possibility that participants employed such a conversational
logic. First, if anticipated future task demands had created
a standard of performance for all tasks, we should have
observed that participants expected the focal task to be dif-
ficult when the future task was presented as difficult and
easy when the future task was presented as easy. This is not
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/37/1/98/1820706
by University of Florida user
on 09 July 2018
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
what happened, because the manipulation checks in studies
2 and 3 (i.e., the expected difficulty levels of the focal and
future tasks) showed that our Future Task Difficulty manip-
ulation only affected the expected difficulty level of the future
task, not the expected difficulty level of the focal task. Second,
a standard of performance account would predict that per-
formance on all tasks should be affected by the standard
established by the anticipated difficulty of the future task.
In particular, performance on the practice task that came
after participants were informed about the difficulty of the
future task but before they performed the focal task should
also have been affected by the Future Task Difficulty ma-
nipulation. However, this was not the case (studies 4 and
5). Finally, a standard of performance account would predict
that—when explicitly asked—participants should indicate
that they would allocate more resources to an intervening
task when the future task was anticipated to be difficult
rather than easy. Yet, in study 3, participants stated that they
were willing to invest less effort in the current task when
the future task was anticipated to be difficult compared to
easy but mobilized resources later on (unconsciously) car-
ried over to the current task when the tasks were perceived
to be similar.
One interesting avenue for future research concerns the
implications of the get ready mind-set for performance on
the future task. We speculate that the effect critically depends
on the extent to which the intervening (focal) task is draining
resources. Increased expenditure of effort on the focal task
might use up resources that are subsequently unavailable
for the future task, so that performance on the future task
suffers as a consequence. On the other hand, if engagement
in the intervening task is not draining resources and per-
formance on the future task does not suffer (or even im-
proves due to a kind of “warming-up” effect), this could be
taken as further evidence for the get ready mind-set. Al-
though it was not the focus of the present study, we explored
the effects of the get ready mind-set on performance in the
future task in study 2. After the focal consumer task, par-
ticipants in this study actually engaged in the future task
and listed as many Christmas gifts for i1 as they could think
of. The gift ideas were assessed with regard to their creativity
by 10 independent judges (based on a 10-point scale ranging
from “not creative at all” to “very creative”; alpha p .83).
Our Future Task Difficulty instructions did not affect the
overall number of gifts listed (F(1, 75) ! 1) nor did they
affect the average creativity of the gifts listed per participant
(F(1, 75) ! 1). Interestingly, however, the first two top-of-
mind gifts generated by participants were judged to be sig-
nificantly more creative in the Difficult, compared to the Easy,
Future Task condition (F(1, 75) p 4.78, p ! .05, h 2 p .06;
Mdif f p 8.04 vs. Measy p 6.91). This suggests that perfor-
mance in the future task did not suffer as a consequence of
the stepped-up effort in the earlier, focal task and even im-
proved early on. Future research may examine in more detail
under which conditions a get ready mind-set, after raising
performance on the intervening task, either increases or de-
creases future task performance.
 THE GET READY MIND-SET
In sum, and returning to the main idea and finding, con-
sumers who anticipate having to perform a difficult future
task may gear up and already start working hard on a current
task, particularly when they do not keep tasks separate due
to situational contingencies or personal characteristics. This
reveals that when getting ready for a later challenge, people
may already be set to get going now.
REFERENCES
Brandstätter, Veronika and Elisabeth Frank (2002), “Effects of De-
liberative and Implemental Mindsets on Persistence in Goal-
Directed Behavior,” Personality and Social Psychological
Bulletin, 28 (October), 1366–78.
Brass, Marcel and D. Yves von Cramon (2002), “The Role of the
Frontal Cortex in Task Preparation,” Cerebral Cortex, 12 (9),
908–14.
Cantor, Joanne R., Dolf Zillmann, and Jennings Bryant (1975),
“Enhancement of Experienced Sexual Arousal in Response
to Erotic Stimuli through Misattribution of Unrelated Residual
Excitation,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
32 (July), 69–75.
Carver, Charles S. and Michael F. Scheier (1998), On the Self-
Regulation of Behavior, New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Contrada, Richard J., Rex A. Wright, and David C. Glass (1984),
“Task Difficulty, Type A Behavior Pattern, and Cardiovas-
cular Response,” Psychophysiology, 21 (November), 638–46.
Gollwitzer, Peter M. (1990), “Action Phases and Mind-Sets,” in
Handbook of Motivation and Cognition: Foundations of So-
cial Behavior, Vol. 2, ed. E. Tory Higgins, New York: Guil-
ford, 53–92.
Gollwitzer, Peter M., Heinz Heckhausen, and Birgit Steller (1990),
“Deliberative and Implemental Mind-Sets: Cognitive Tuning
toward Congruous Thoughts and Information,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 59 (December), 1119–27.
Guilford, J. Paul (1967), The Nature of Human Intelligence, New
York: McGraw-Hill.
Jeannerod, Marc and Jean Decety (1995), “Mental Motor Imagery:
A Window into the Representational Stages of Action,” Cur-
rent Opinion in Neurobiology, 5, 727–32.
Kitayama, Shinobu, Sean Duffy, Tadashi Kawamura, and Jeff T.
Larsen (2003), “Perceiving an Object and Its Context in Dif-
ferent Cultures: A Cultural Look at New Look,” Psycholog-
ical Science, 14 (May), 210–16.
Locke, Edwin A. and Gary P. Latham (2006), “New Directions in
Goal-Setting Theory,” Current Directions in Psychological
Science, 15 (October), 265–68.
Martin, Leonard L., David W. Ward, John W. Achee, and Robert
S. Wyer (1993), “Mood as Input: People Have to Interpret
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/37/1/98/1820706
by University of Florida user
on 09 July 2018
107
the Motivational Implications of Their Moods,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 64 (March), 317–26.
Monga, Alokparna Basy and Deborah Roedder John (2007), “Cul-
tural Differences in Brand Extension Evaluation: The Influ-
ence of Analytic versus Holistic Thinking,” Journal of Con-
sumer Research, 33 (March), 529–36.
Muraven, Mark, Dikla Shmueli, and Edward Burkley (2006),
“Conserving Self-Control Strength,” Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 91 (September), 524–37.
Nisbett, Richard E., Kaiping Peng, Incheol Choi, and Ara Noren-
zayan (2001), “Culture and Systems of Thought: Holistic ver-
sus Analytic Cognition,” Psychological Review, 108 (April),
291–310.
Pham, Michel Tuan (1998), “Representativeness, Relevance, and
the Use of Feelings in Decision Making,” Journal of Con-
sumer Research, 25 (September), 144–59.
Riding, Richard and Indra Cheema (1991), “Cognitive Styles: An
Overview and Integration,” Educational Psychology, 11
(3–4), 193–215.
Sakai, Katsuyuki and Richard E. Passingham (2003), “Prefrontal
Interactions Reflect Future Task Operations,” Nature Neuro-
science, 6 (January), 75–81.
Sanbonmatsu David M. and Frank R. Kardes (1988), “The Effects
of Physiological Arousal on Information Processing and Per-
suasion,” Journal of Consumer Research, 15 (December),
379–85.
Schwarz, Norbert and Gerald L. Clore (1983), “Mood, Misattri-
bution, and Judgments of Well-Being: Informative and Di-
rective Functions of Affective States,” Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 45 (September), 513–23.
Vohs, Kathleen D. and Ronald J. Faber (2007), “Spent Resources:
Self-Regulatory Resource Availability Affects Impulse Buy-
ing,” Journal of Consumer Research, 33 (March), 537–47.
Witkin, Herman A. (1950), “Individual Differences in Ease of
Perception of Embedded Figures,” Journal of Personality, 19,
1–15.
Woltman-Elpers, Josephine, Michel Wedel, and Rik Pieters (2003),
“Why Do Consumers Stop Viewing Television Commercials?
Two Experiments on the Influence of Moment-to-Moment
Entertainment and Information Value,” Journal of Marketing
Research, 40 (November), 437–53.
Wright, Rex A. (1996), “Brehm’s Theory of Motivation as a Model
of Effort and Cardiovascular Response,” in The Psychology
of Action: Linking Cognition and Motivation to Behavior, ed.
Peter M. Gollwitzer and John A. Bargh, New York: Guilford,
424–53.
Zillmann, Dolf, Rolland C. Johnson, and Kenneth D. Day (1974),
“Attribution of Apparent Arousal and Proficiency of Recovery
from Sympathetic Activation Affecting Excitation Transfer to
Aggressive Behavior,” Journal of Experimental Social Psy-
chology, 10 (November), 503–15.