Self-defining future projections: Exploring the identity function of thinking about the future

Abstract

The act of projecting oneself into meaningful future events may significantly contribute to a person's sense of self and identity. Yet if the role of memories, in particular self-defining memories (SDMs), in grounding the self is now well established, the identity function of anticipated future events has received comparatively little attention. This article introduces the construct of self-defining future projection (SDFP) to address this issue. Two studies show that people can readily identify significant future events that they frequently think about and that convey core information about who they are as individuals. Furthermore, a person's particular style of constructing SDMs is similarly manifested in SDFPs, suggesting that both types of events can be used to ground the self. Notably, people who display a stronger tendency to extract meaning from their past experiences also reflect more about the potential implications of imagined future events. The results further demonstrate that SDMs and SDFPs both give rise to a strong sense of personal continuity over time and are meaningfully related to self-esteem. Together these findings lend support to the idea that a person's sense of self and identity is in part nourished by the anticipation of significant future events.

Keywords:

• Autobiographical memory
• Self-defining memories
• Future thinking
• Identity

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a grant from the French-speaking community of Belgium (ARC, Convention 06/11-340). Arnaud D'Argembeau is supported by the Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS), Belgium. We thank Lysia Hubert for her help in data collection.