Anticipatory self-imagery may also promote the perception
that goal-congruent outcomes are possible and reside in
the person. Considerable research suggests that imagining
future outcomes increases people’s assessments that a goalcongruent
outcome will occur (for a review, see Johnson
and Sherman 1990). As evidence of the impact of anticipatory
self-imagery on hope, Wilkinson (1990) finds that
anticipatory self-imagery of positive outcomes helped cancer
patients replace depression and despair with hope.