The Psychology of Thinking about the Future

Why do people spend so much time thinking about the future, imagining scenarios that may never occur, and making (often unrealistic) predictions? This volume brings together leading researchers from multiple psychological subdisciplines to explore the central role of future-thinking in human behavior across the lifespan. It presents cutting-edge work on the mechanisms involved in visualizing, predicting, and planning for the future. Implications are explored for such important domains as well-being and mental health, academic and job performance, ethical decision making, and financial behavior. Throughout, chapters highlight effective self-regulation strategies that help people pursue and realize their short- and long-term goals.

Why do people spend so much time thinking about the future, imagining scenarios that may never occur, and making (often unrealistic) predictions? This volume brings together leading researchers from multiple psychological subdisciplines to explore the central role of future-thinking in human behavior across the lifespan. It presents cutting-edge work on the mechanisms involved in visualizing, predicting, and planning for the future. Implications are explored for such important domains as well-being and mental health, academic and job performance, ethical decision making, and financial behavior. Throughout, chapters highlight effective self-regulation strategies that help people pursue and realize their short- and long-term goals.

Introduction, Gabriele Oettingen, A. Timur Sevincer, & Peter M. Gollwitzer Setting the Stage 1. Future-Thinking: A Historical Perspective, Lucian Hölscher 2. Future-Thinking in Animals: Capacities and Limits, Jonathan Redshaw & Adam Bulley 3. Varieties of Future-Thinking, Karl K. Szpunar, Sushmita Shrikanth, & Daniel L. Schacter I. Imagery 4. Future-Thinking in Young Children: How Do We Measure It and How Can We Optimize It?, Cristina M. Atance 5. The Future Self, Hal E. Hershfield & Daniel Bartels 6. Counterfactual Thinking, Kai Epstude 7. Fantasy about the Future as Friend and Foe, Gabriele Oettingen & A. Timur Sevincer II. Beliefs and Judgments 8. Expectations in the Academic Domain, Dale H. Schunk & Maria K. DiBenedetto 9. Self-Efficacy, James E. Maddux & Evan M. Kleiman 10. Positive Future-Thinking, Well-Being, and Mental Health, Andrew K. MacLeod & Rory C. O’Connor 11. Generalized Optimism, Charles S. Carver & Michael F. Scheier 12. Fluctuations in Future Outlooks: Unrealistic Optimism and Pessimism in Outcome Predictions, James A. Shepperd, Angelica Falkenstein, & Kate Sweeny 13. A Neuroeconomist’s Perspective on Thinking about the Future, Anna B. Konova & Paul W. Glimcher 14. Anticipated Regret: A Prospective Emotion about the Future Past, Marcel Zeelenberg 15. Thinking about the Future: A Construal Level Theory Perspective, Michael Gilead, Yaacov Trope, & Nira Liberman 16. Perceiving Future Time across Adulthood, Frieder R. Lang & Franziska Damm III. Goals and Plans 17. Planning Out Future Action, Affect, and Cognition, Peter M. Gollwitzer & Christina Crosby 18. Mindsets Change the Imagined and Actual Future, Carol S. Dweck & David S. Yeager 19. Long-Range Thinking and Goal-Directed Action, Edwin A. Locke 20. The Effect of Priming Goals on Organizational-Related Behavior: My Transition from Skeptic to Believer, Gary P. Latham 21. The Forward Rush: On Locomotor’s Future Focus, Arie W. Kruglanski, Marina Chernikova, & Katarzyna Jasko 22. Where I Ideally Want to Be versus Where I Ought to Be: Regulatory Focus and the Future, James F. M. Cornwell & E. Tory Higgins 23. To Approach or to Avoid: Integrating the Biopsychosocial Model of Challenge and Threat with Theories from Affective Dynamics and Motivation Science, Jeremy P. Jamieson & Andrew J. Elliot 24. Anticipating and Overcoming Unethical Temptation, Oliver J. Sheldon & Ayelet Fishbach 25. The Road to Hell: An Overview of Research on the Intention–Behavior Gap, Paschal Sheeran & Thomas L. Webb 26. Multiple Processes in Prospective Memory: Exploring the Nature of Spontaneous Retrieval, Gilles O. Einstein, Mark A. McDaniel, & Francis Anderson 27. The Planning Fallacy, Roger Buehler & Dale Griffin Index