Imagining a Supportive Close Person and Sustained Engagement in a Cognitive Task: A Repeated-Measures Study

Close relationships may support goal-directed behavior not only through direct interpersonal contact but also through the activation of mental representations of supportive others. However, relatively little is known about whether imagining a supportive close person is associated with sustained behavioral engagement during a cognitive task.

This study examined whether supportive-close-person imagery is associated with higher behavioral indicators of sustained task engagement compared with a non-social control condition and a socially neutral familiar-person imagery condition.

Eighty adults participated in a within-subject repeated-measures study. Each participant completed The Maze Test in three counterbalanced conditions: observation of a neutral object, imagery of a socially neutral familiar person, and imagery of a supportive close person. The primary behavioral indicators were total task time and the number of completed mazes. Average time per maze was treated as an auxiliary indicator of task pace or efficiency. The DASS-42 was administered after each session as a symptom-stability screening measure.

Experimental condition had a significant effect on all behavioral outcomes. Participants showed the longest total task time and completed the highest number of mazes in the supportive-close-person condition, intermediate values in the socially neutral familiar-person condition, and the lowest values in the control condition. DASS-42 scores, session number, and condition order did not account for the observed pattern. A censoring-aware Cox model also confirmed the robustness of the condition effect on total task time despite the automatic 1500 s task limit.

Imagining a supportive close person was associated with greater sustained engagement in a cognitive task. The findings are consistent with the possibility that close-relationship representations may support goal-directed behavior, although the psychological mechanisms underlying this effect require direct examination in future studies.