O'Donnell Sara, Hollis-Hansen Kelseanna, Epstein Leonard H
Department of Pediatrics, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo, New York, NY 14214-3000, USA.
Behav Sci (Basel). 2018 Dec 21;9(1):1. doi: 10.3390/bs9010001.
Episodic future thinking (EFT), or prospectively imagining yourself in the future, has been developed into an intervention tool to reduce delay discounting (DD), or the preference for smaller immediate over larger future rewards, and to make healthier choices that promote long-term health rather than short-term enjoyment. Most EFT interventions use EFT cues whose future events match the time delays of the DD task, which may limit the utility of EFT. The current study ( = 160, = 35.25, 47.5% female) used a 2 × 2 factorial design with type of episodic thinking (matched, unmatched) and temporal perspective (EFT, episodic recent thinking (ERT)) as between-subject factors to investigate whether there were differences in DD for groups that had EFT cues matched to the time delays of the DD task in comparison to cues with unmatched temporal delays. The results showed EFT reduced DD compared to ERT controls, and no differences emerged between matched and unmatched EFT groups. Our findings suggest that either the process of generating EFT cues or the use of any positive and vivid future event, regardless of whether it is matched to the DD task, can reduce DD.
情景式未来思维（EFT），即前瞻性地想象自己身处未来，已发展成为一种干预工具，用于减少延迟折扣（DD），也就是相较于更大的未来奖励，对较小即时奖励的偏好，并做出促进长期健康而非短期享乐的更健康选择。大多数EFT干预使用的EFT线索，其未来事件与DD任务的时间延迟相匹配，这可能会限制EFT的效用。本研究（ = 160， = 35.25，47.5%为女性）采用2×2析因设计，将情景式思维类型（匹配、不匹配）和时间视角（EFT、情景式近期思维（ERT））作为组间因素，以探究与时间延迟不匹配的线索相比，EFT线索与DD任务的时间延迟相匹配的组在DD方面是否存在差异。结果显示，与ERT对照组相比，EFT降低了DD，且匹配和不匹配的EFT组之间未出现差异。我们的研究结果表明，生成EFT线索的过程或使用任何积极且生动的未来事件，无论其是否与DD任务匹配，都可以降低DD。
