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Abstract
While many thoughts and mental images that people form about their personal future refer to emotionally significant events, there is still little empirical data on the frequency and nature of emotional future-oriented thoughts (EmoFTs) that occur in natural settings. In the present study, participants recorded EmoFTs occurring in daily life and rated their characteristics, emotional properties, and perceived functions. The results showed that EmoFTs are frequent, occur in various contexts, and are perceived to fulfil important functions, mostly related to goal pursuit and emotion regulation. When distinguishing between anticipatory and anticipated emotions (i.e., emotions experienced in the present versus emotions expected to occur in the future), a positivity bias in the frequency of EmoFTs was found to be restricted to anticipated emotions. The representational format and perceived function of EmoFTs varied according to their affective valence, and the intensity of anticipatory and anticipated emotions were influenced by the personal importance and amount of visual imagery of EmoFTs. Mood states preceding EmoFTs influenced their emotional components, which, in turn, impacted ensuing mood states. Overall, these findings shed further light on the emotional properties of future-oriented thoughts that are experienced in daily life.
The authors thank Marjorie Texier for her help with data collection.
Notes
1It should be noted that EmoFT is conceived here as a broad phenomenon that include any type of future-oriented thought that is accompanied by an emotion. Therefore, this notion could potentially include more specific types of future-oriented thoughts that have been previously described in the literature, such as worries (which predominantly involve verbal thoughts about negative events that we are afraid might happen in the future; Borkovec, Ray, & Stober, Citation1998).
2Recent evidence has shown that the spatial component of mental imagery is particularly important when constructing future simulations; moreover, when the spatial component of mental imagery is disrupted during future thinking, while the depictive component of mental imagery is spared, fewer emotional details are reported (De Vito, Buonocore, Bonnefon, & Della Sala, Citation2014). The measure of visual imagery that was used in the present study does not allow us to distinguish between spatial and depictive components, and it would be interesting in future studies to investigate whether these components show specific relationships with the emotional intensity associated with prospection in daily life.