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Thinking about the past and future in daily life: an experience sampling study of individual differences in mental time travel

Thinking about the past and future in daily life: an experience sampling study of individual... Remembering the past and imagining the future are hallmarks of mental time travel. We provide evidence that such experiences are influenced by individual differences in temporal and affective biases in cognitive style, particularly brooding rumination (a negative past-oriented bias) and optimism (a positive future-oriented bias). Participants completed a 7-day, cellphone-based experience-sampling study of temporal orientation and mental imagery. Multilevel models showed that individual differences in brooding rumination predicted less vivid and positive past- and future-oriented thoughts, even after controlling for depressed mood. People high in brooding rumination were also more likely to report thinking about a past experience when probed at random during the day. Conversely, optimists were more likely to report more vivid and positive future-oriented, but not past-oriented thoughts, although they did not report thinking more or less often about the past and future. The results suggest that temporal and affective biases in cognitive style influence how people think about the past and future in daily life. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Psychological Research Springer Journals

Thinking about the past and future in daily life: an experience sampling study of individual differences in mental time travel

Beaty, Roger; Seli, Paul; Schacter, Daniel
Psychological Research , Volume 83 (4) – Aug 20, 2018
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References (91)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature
Subject
Psychology; Psychology Research
ISSN
0340-0727
eISSN
1430-2772
DOI
10.1007/s00426-018-1075-7
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Remembering the past and imagining the future are hallmarks of mental time travel. We provide evidence that such experiences are influenced by individual differences in temporal and affective biases in cognitive style, particularly brooding rumination (a negative past-oriented bias) and optimism (a positive future-oriented bias). Participants completed a 7-day, cellphone-based experience-sampling study of temporal orientation and mental imagery. Multilevel models showed that individual differences in brooding rumination predicted less vivid and positive past- and future-oriented thoughts, even after controlling for depressed mood. People high in brooding rumination were also more likely to report thinking about a past experience when probed at random during the day. Conversely, optimists were more likely to report more vivid and positive future-oriented, but not past-oriented thoughts, although they did not report thinking more or less often about the past and future. The results suggest that temporal and affective biases in cognitive style influence how people think about the past and future in daily life.

Journal

Psychological Research – Springer Journals

Published: Aug 20, 2018

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