Is the future always brighter than the past? Anticipation of changes in the personal future after recall of past experiences

Abstract

People tend to hold an optimistic view of their futures. Using a novel paradigm to examine the anticipated change from the personal past to the personal future, we found that the future was not always perceived as brighter than the past. College students (N = 156) recalled positive and negative personal events of various situations. Following each recall, they imagined a future personal event involving the same situation. Participants expected over half of the events to change in either upward or downward directions, depending on the valence of the past events. In addition, participants anticipated greater changes in domains of less stability, and Asians anticipated greater changes than European Americans. Anticipated future changes were further associated with psychological well-being. The findings shed new light on future event simulation.

Keywords:

• Memory
• Future simulation
• Future thinking
• Dialecticism
• Well-being
• Culture

This manuscript is based upon work supported by a Hatch Grant from the US Department of Agriculture and a Jeffrey Sean Lehman Fund from Cornell University to the first author. We thank Alexandra Beauchamp and Elana Marber for their assistance and Françoise Vermeylen for statistical consultation.

This manuscript is based upon work supported by a Hatch Grant from the US Department of Agriculture and a Jeffrey Sean Lehman Fund from Cornell University to the first author. We thank Alexandra Beauchamp and Elana Marber for their assistance and Françoise Vermeylen for statistical consultation.

Notes

¹ The data from an additional participant who had one parent of Asian and one of European descent were excluded.

² Participants completed additional questionnaires that address separate research questions. The data are not included here.