Development of Episodic Future Thinking and Future-oriented Decision Making Study, 2016-2019

These data stem from five large studies examining the relation between episodic future thinking and delay of gratification in preschoolers, children, and adolescents. Study 1 examined the relation between episodic future thinking and performance on a delay choice task in preschoolers; Study 2 examined whether performance in preschoolers on delay choice was enhanced by encouraging participants to thinking episodically about the future. The results of Studies 1 and 2 indicate that while there may be some relations between delay choice and episodic future thinking in this age group, children this age do not benefit from being primed to think episodically. Studies 3 and 4 examined similar issues in older children. The findings of Study 3 indicated that episodic future thinking is not related to delay choice in this age group, but that a measure of subjective future time was predictive, suggesting that how children represent the distance in time of future events has an impact on whether they decide to delay gratification. Study 4 found that older children, like preschoolers, do not benefit from being primed to think episodically about the future. Study 5 examined such priming in adolescents and adults, and included a novel priming condition in which participants thought about future episodes concerning another person. The findings demonstrated the standard episodic future priming effect in both adolescents and adults but there was no benefit in the novel priming condition. These results suggest that episodic future priming is not beneficial to delay of gratification until the adolescent years, and that such priming must specifically involve thought about the future self.<p>We are often faced with a choice between doing something that has an immediate reward (e.g., spending money on a treat) and doing something that has no immediate benefit but is in the longer-term more advantageous (e.g., saving to buy a house). Choosing the smaller immediate reward over the larger, future reward has been described as &quot;discounting&quot; the larger future reward (i.e., the value of the delayed reward is seen as lower because of how far away in time it is). Such discounting has been extensively studied by psychologists, not least because the choices people make in experiments are predictive of various sorts of potentially harmful real-world behavior (e.g., overeating, gambling, substance abuse). Psychologists are particularly interested in finding out which psychological processes may reduce discounting because this can help them develop appropriate interventions. It has been claimed that a particular sort of thought about the future plays a special role in supporting prudent decision making: what is termed episodic future thinking (EFT). EFT involves imagining in one's mind's eye specific events in one's own future, i.e., mentally &quot;pre-experiencing&quot; events before they happen. Indeed, studies with adults have suggested that encouraging people to think episodically about the future can help reduce discounting, with these findings beginning to form the basis of some novel interventions.
Young children have difficulty making prudent choices. The tendency to discount future rewards decreases gradually across childhood and also changes over adolescence, with 16-year-olds being more likely to make prudent choices than 14-year-olds. However, as yet, we do not fully understand the developmental changes that lie behind these important improvements in future-oriented decision making. EFT skills first emerge around 4 to 5 years, and, like future-oriented decision making, EFT continues to improve into adolescence. However, nothing is currently known about how the development of EFT and the development of decision making are linked. This project will examine this issue for the first time in a series of experiments that explore whether children's and adolescents' EFT abilities are linked to their tendency to discount future rewards. We will also test whether encouraging children and adolescents to think episodically about the future enhances their decision making, by contrasting the effects of EFT versus other sorts of thinking on discounting behavior. Finally, the project will examine a further untested hypothesis regarding developmental changes in future-oriented decision making: that younger children are more likely to discount future rewards because times in the future feel farther away to them than to older children. Existing research suggests that adults may differ in their tendency to discount future rewards in part because of differences in how far away the distant future feels to them. However, we do not know if this can explain age differences. We will thus examine whether any developmental differences in how far away the future feels are linked to EFT skills and, more specifically, the idea that difficulties younger children have in imagining events in their futures means that future rewards seem very distant in time.
This project will not only shed light on important developmental changes in decision making, it will also help psychologists understand the processes underlying prudent choice and the function of EFT. Such understanding is crucial for developing interventions to enhance future-oriented decision making in children, adolescents, and adults.</p>

本数据集源自五项大型研究，旨在探究学龄前儿童、儿童及青少年群体中，情景性未来思维（episodic future thinking，以下简称EFT）与延迟满足（delay of gratification）之间的关联。研究1考察了学龄前儿童的情景性未来思维与其在延迟选择任务（delay choice task）中的表现之间的关联；研究2则探究了通过引导参与者进行情景性未来思考，是否能够提升学龄前儿童在延迟选择任务中的表现。研究1与研究2的结果表明，尽管该年龄段群体的延迟选择行为与情景性未来思维之间或许存在一定关联，但此类情景性启动并未使该年龄段儿童获益。研究3与研究4则针对年长儿童开展了类似议题的探究。研究3的结果显示，该年龄段群体的情景性未来思维与延迟选择行为并无关联，但主观未来时间感（subjective future time）量表得分具备预测性，这表明儿童对未来事件的时间距离表征方式，会影响其是否选择延迟满足。研究4发现，与学龄前儿童一致，年长儿童也无法从情景性未来思考启动中获益。研究5针对青少年与成人开展了此类启动范式的探究，并增设了一项全新的启动条件：让参与者思考与他人相关的未来情景。结果证实，青少年与成人群体均呈现出标准的情景性未来启动效应，但该全新启动条件并未带来任何获益。上述结果提示，情景性未来启动需至青少年阶段才会对延迟满足产生有益作用，且此类启动必须专门涉及对未来自我的思考。

我们时常面临两类选择：一是能即刻获得回报的行为（如花钱购买零食），二是暂无即时收益但从长期来看更为有利的行为（如储蓄购房）。相较于更大额度的未来回报，选择更小额度的即时回报，被称为对未来大额回报的“延迟折扣”（即由于回报的时间距离，延迟奖励的感知价值会被降低）。心理学家已对这类延迟折扣行为开展了大量研究，这不仅是因为实验中参与者的选择能够预测多种潜在有害的现实行为（如暴饮暴食、赌博、药物滥用），更因为学界始终致力于探寻能够降低延迟折扣的心理过程，以期据此开发适宜的干预手段。有研究指出，一种特定的未来思考方式在支持审慎决策中发挥着特殊作用，即所谓的情景性未来思维（EFT）：个体在脑海中具象化想象自身未来的特定事件，也就是在事件发生前进行心理上的“预体验”。过往针对成人的研究表明，引导人们进行情景性未来思考，能够帮助降低延迟折扣，此类发现也逐渐成为部分新型干预手段的理论基础。

年幼儿童在做出审慎选择时存在困难。未来回报的延迟折扣倾向会随着儿童期的发展逐渐减弱，且在青春期阶段也会发生变化——16岁青少年比14岁青少年更有可能做出审慎选择。然而截至目前，我们尚未完全明晰支撑这些未来导向决策能力提升的发展性变化机制。情景性未来思维能力大约在4至5岁时首次出现，且与未来导向决策能力一样，会持续发展至青少年阶段。但目前尚无研究探讨情景性未来思维的发展与决策能力发展之间的关联。本项目将通过一系列实验首次探究这一议题：考察儿童与青少年的情景性未来思维能力是否与其延迟折扣倾向相关。我们还将对比情景性未来思维与其他类型思考对延迟折扣行为的影响，以此检验引导儿童及青少年进行情景性未来思考是否能够改善其决策表现。此外，本项目还将验证另一项尚未得到检验的关于未来导向决策发展性变化的假设：年幼儿童更倾向于延迟折扣，是因为相较于年长儿童，他们感知到的未来时间距离更远。现有研究表明，成人之间的延迟折扣倾向差异，部分源于个体对遥远未来的时间距离感知差异，但我们尚不明确这一因素能否解释年龄层面的差异。因此，我们将探究未来时间距离感知的发展性差异是否与情景性未来思维技能相关，具体而言，即验证“年幼儿童难以想象自身未来事件，导致未来回报在其感知中显得格外遥远”这一假说。

本项目不仅将揭示决策能力领域的重要发展性变化，还将帮助心理学家理解审慎选择背后的心理过程以及情景性未来思维的功能。此类理解对于开发能够提升儿童、青少年及成人未来导向决策能力的干预手段至关重要。