Future self-appraisals and global self-esteem: Who benefits more from thinking about the future, and why?

Abstract

People tend to think positively about their future selves. However, it remains unclear to what extent this tendency depends on the positivity of their current self-appraisal. To study this problem, we employed the assumptions of construal level theory, the concept of self-enhancement, and the assumptions of temporal self-appraisal theory, and we examined the role of global self-esteem in the relationship between temporal distance and future self-appraisals measured in absolute (Study 1), comparative temporal (Study 2), or comparative social (Study 3) ways. In all three studies, when assessed in terms of specific dimensions, future self-appraisals increased with temporal distance only in people with low self-esteem, but when assessed in terms of general dimensions, self-appraisals were higher in the distant compared to the near future irrespective of self-esteem level.

Keywords:

• Self-esteem
• temporal distance
• future self-appraisals

Acknowledgment

We are grateful to the editor, Camille Johnson, and the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments, which have enabled us to considerably improve this article.

Notes

1. Following CLT’s assumption, we might predict that there is an increasingly negative appraisal of the self with temporal distance in people with a markedly negative present self-image and obviously LSE, i.e., people suffering from depression.

2. It is worth noting that although these findings were obtained using subjective, rather than objective measures of temporal distance, TSA theory’s main propositions refer to the general motivational consequences of temporal comparisons.

3. All regression weights are standardized.

4. Despite there being no significant interactions with the predictors for future general self-appraisals in any of the studies, we have nevertheless presented graphs to compare them with the effects of future-specific self-appraisals.