ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how mental imagery has been utilised in various branches of psychology as well as in the worlds of sports and business. It begins with a brief overview of the history of researching vision, describing how the study of mental imagery has been subject to considerable fluctuation in scientific respectability in the past, followed by a discussion of the implications of vision for a broad spectrum of professional activities. This summary provides ample evidence that the act of conjuring up mental pictures, particularly scenes of imagined future realities, has an inherent inspirational and energising capacity. In exploring this matter further, the second half of the chapter provides an analysis of why vision can motivate people. While scholarly opinions differ about how exactly, and to what extent, the envisaged image of a successful outcome can channel energy into constructive goal-related behaviour, it will be shown that research on the motivational dimension of vision in the social sciences has been wide-ranging, producing a wealth of findings and transferrable lessons. Of these, the strategies established in sport, business leadership, psychotherapy and educational psychology are particularly relevant for the current book.
