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.