Center on Autobiographical Memory Research, Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences, School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2023 Aug;76(8):1817-1829. doi: 10.1177/17470218221126471. Epub 2022 Oct 31.
By manipulating our basic mode of prospectively thinking about the future, the present study examines the effect of retrospective future thinking on future events imagined as if they had already taken place. Here, 142 young adults were randomly assigned to report five autobiographical future events either prospectively from the perspective of their current self or retrospectively, imagining events from the perspective of their 100-year-old self. Participants indicated the expected age of occurrence and assessed phenomenological characteristics for each event. Results suggest that a shift in future thinking perspective affects the content and temporal distribution of future events. Characteristics of prospective future events diminished with increasing distance, whereas retrospective future events included overall more spatial details and remained high on belief in occurrence, vividness, and rehearsal across life. Retrospective future thinking influences the psychological distance of autobiographical future events, allowing us to hold even distant future events psychologically close.
通过操纵我们前瞻性思考未来的基本模式，本研究考察了回溯性未来思维对想象为已经发生的未来事件的影响。在这里，142 名年轻成年人被随机分配，从他们当前自我的角度前瞻性地报告五个自传体未来事件，或从他们 100 岁自我的角度回溯性地报告。参与者为每个事件指出了预期的发生年龄，并评估了现象学特征。结果表明，未来思维视角的转变会影响未来事件的内容和时间分布。随着距离的增加，前瞻性未来事件的特征减弱，而回溯性未来事件包括更多的空间细节，并且在整个生命周期中对发生的信念、生动性和排练仍然很高。回溯性未来思维影响自传体未来事件的心理距离，使我们能够将即使遥远的未来事件在心理上拉近。
