Consciousness and Cognition 22 (2013) 742–755

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Consciousness and Cognition

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate /concog

The time travelling self: Comparing self and other in narrativesof past and future events

1053-8100/$ - see front matter � 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2013.04.010

⇑ Corresponding author. Address: 101 Tillett Hall, 53 Ave. E, Piscataway, NJ 08854, United States. Fax: +1 732 445 0036.E-mail address: agrysman@rci.rutgers.edu (A. Grysman).

Azriel Grysman ⇑, Janani Prabhakar, Stephanie M. Anglin, Judith A. HudsonRutgers University - New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history:Received 7 November 2012

Keywords:Autobiographical memorySelf-enhancementEpisodic foresightCultural life scriptMental time travel

Mental time travel research emphasizes the connection between past and future thinking,whereas autobiographical memory research emphasizes the interrelationship of self andmemory. This study explored the relationship between self and memory when thinkingabout both past and future events. Participants reported events from the near and distantpast and future, for themselves, a close friend, or an acquaintance. Past events were ratedhigher in phenomenological quality than future events, and near self events were ratedhigher in quality than those about friends. Although future events were more positive thanpast events, only valence ratings for self and close friend showed a linear increase in pos-itivity from distant past to future. Content analysis showed that this increase in positivitycould not be ascribed to choosing events from the cultural life script. These findings pro-vide evidence for the role of personal goals in imagining the future.

� 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Autobiographical memory research emphasizes the relationship between the self and memory processes. Decades of re-search have examined the role of the self in remembering the past; recent work has turned to investigating how we envisionthe future, and how future thinking is related to memory of the past. The experiment reported here assesses how memory-related processes and self-related processes together shape anticipated future events, which tend to be more positive (Sed-ikides & Gregg, 2008) but less detailed (Berntsen & Bohn, 2010) than memories of past events. We compared memories andanticipated future events for self and other to examine three processes involved in imagining future events: episodic mem-ory, self-enhancement biases, and cultural life scripts. Each of these factors is discussed in turn.

1.1. Constructive episodic simulation of future events

Research on constructive episodic simulation (Schacter & Addis, 2007) examines the relationship between cognitive pro-cesses involved in recalling the past and imagining the future. Also referred to as ‘mental time travel’ (MTT, Suddendorf &Busby, 2005), the comparison of episodic recall and future episodic simulation has indicated that similar cognitive and neu-ral mechanisms underlie recalling the past and simulating the future (e.g. Addis, Wong, & Schacter, 2007; Spreng & Grady,2010; Szpunar, Watson, & McDermott, 2007; for a detailed review, see Schacter et al., 2012). Additionally, patients with dam-age-induced amnesia demonstrate difficulties imagining the future that mirror their inabilities to recall the past (Hassabis,Kumaran, Vann, & Maguire, 2007; Klein, Loftus, & Kihlstrom, 2002; but see Cooper, Vargha-Khadem, Gadian, & Maguire,2011); this provides further evidence that these two processes are strongly related.

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Simulating the future and remembering the past rely on overlapping systems. However, Addis, Pan, Vu, Laiser, and Sch-acter (2009) have suggested that episodic simulation of the future is a more difficult task than recalling the past. Future epi-sodic simulation entails construction instead of retrieval and involves an unfamiliar rather than familiar setting (Arnold,McDermott, & Szpunar, 2011). Because of the added difficulty and unfamiliarity that comes with constructing a unique fu-ture event rather than simply retrieving one from episodic memory, memories of past events have been reported to containmore sensorial details, more visual imagery, and more clarity for the location of events than imagined future events (Bernt-sen & Bohn, 2010; D’Argembeau and Van der Linden, 2004). A number of studies suggest that future events contain fewersensorial details than past events because of their novelty. For example, Gamboz, Brandimonte, and De Vito (2010) foundthat distant future events were rated as both less vivid and more novel than near future events, and contained less informa-tion about time and location, less clarity, and less sensorial detail than near and distant past events. Trope and Liberman’s(2003)temporal construal theory has similarly suggested that distant events are more schematic and less based on specificevent details.

Spreng and Levine (2006) asked participants to think of past and future events in response to cue words, and to indicatewhen the event either happened or was expected to happen. They found that both past and future events demonstrated sim-ilar distributions such that participants were more likely to report events close to the present whether in the past or in thefuture. They also calculated the median time point used for past and future events, and found that that anticipated futureevents were reported as closer to the present than remembered past events; this suggests that, when considering the future,participants do not stray as far from the present as when they remember the past (Spreng & Levine, 2006). It is possible thatthe similarity to the present provided by temporal closeness aided participants in imagining future events. Thus, althoughfuture events recruit similar mental capacities as past events, they tend to exhibit lower imagistic quality because they re-quire more mental work in supplying the details, involve novel scenarios, and encourage attention to a more limited amountof information. Events farther in the future require more construction as the settings become increasingly novel. Therefore,we would expect a decline in phenomenological details with time.

1.2. Self-enhancement

Episodic future thinking is also influenced by individuals’ motives and goals. D’Argembeau and Mathy (2011) developed ahierarchical model for constructing imagined future events based on current models of how memories are retrieved (e.g.Barsalou, 1988; Conway, 2005; Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). Specifically, they demonstrated that imagined futureevents involve a protracted construction process similar to the one described in autobiographical memory (study 1), thatcuing participants with future goals led to faster retrieval of future events (study 2), and further, that cuing participants withtheir own personal goals led to more episodic details in imagined future events (study 3). These studies suggest that personalgoals and plans play an important role in imagining future events. Work by Rathbone, Conway, and Moulin (2011) furtheremphasizes the organizing role of the self. They found that both memories and future events cued by identity statements(e.g. I am cheerful, I will be a mother) clustered temporally around the times that these traits developed or were expectedto be developed. This finding suggests that the self is an organizing feature in imagining future events, as in memory.

Furthermore, work by Shao, Yao, Ceci, and Wang (2010) suggests that personal goals can be even more important thanepisodic memory in structuring anticipated future events. They instructed participants to report two past episodes and imag-ine two future episodes, and to rate the valence of each episode. Participants also described their past, present, and futureselves by completing blank statements beginning with the word ‘‘I.’’ To create a measure of self-concept, the researcherscoded these statements as either personal or social. Shao et al. (2010) found a positive correlation between the numberof personal (as opposed to social) ‘‘I’’ statements and valence of future events, but not the valence of past events, and thismeasure of self-concept correlated more strongly with valence of future episodes than valence of past episodes. This studydemonstrates that simulations of future events are not simply replications of past memories into novel contexts, but areguided by personal goals and expectations for the future.

Because personal goals influence how people imagine their future, it is likely that future event simulation is affected byself-enhancement biases. People have a desire to see their lives as constantly improving (for reviews, see Sedikides & Gregg,2008; Taylor & Brown, 1988). This pattern fits theories regarding enhancement biases and exaggerated optimism about thefuture (Markus & Nurius, 1986). Temporal self-appraisal theory (Wilson & Ross, 2001) states that people are motivated to seethemselves as constantly improving, and will even denigrate their past selves to enhance their present selves. Research onfuture event simulation suggests that this pattern of constant self-improvement extends beyond the present to includeimagined future events (D’Argembeau and Van der Linden, 2004; Shao et al., 2010). Thus, the processes of recalling the pastand imagining the future not only involve applying knowledge from episodic memory to a novel future situation, but alsoinvolve a bias to construct one’s life story in the framework of a perpetually-improving self (D’Argembeau and Van der Lin-den, 2004) who is achieving desired goals (D’Argembeau and Mathy, 2011; Shao et al., 2010).

1.3. Cultural life scripts

In addition to self-enhancement and episodic memory processes, cultural life scripts may influence the simulation of fu-ture events (Berntsen & Rubin, 2004) by guiding individuals to write about certain expected events. The cultural life scriptrefers to a culturally shared knowledge of major life events that are expected to happen in a person’s life time, such as getting

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married or having children. When participants search for memories and imagined future events, the cultural life script canserve as a useful search mechanism. Berntsen and Jacobsen (2008) have found that, in a study of involuntary memories andimagined future events, increased temporal distance from the event raised the likelihood that a person would report a lifescript event in both the past and the future. Berntsen and Bohn (2010) elicited memories and imagined future events fromparticipants and found that more distant events were more often related to a self-narrative, and included many life scriptevents. Bohn and Berntsen (2011), however, only found a tendency to report life script events when describing one’s antic-ipated life story, but did not find a tendency to report life script events when generating possible future events in response tocue words.

Findings from studies that emphasize cultural life scripts raise the possibility that the positivity bias reported in studies ofimagined future events emerges from the fact that participants are more likely to select life script events, and these events(e.g., graduating from college, marriage, birth of children) tend to be positive, especially amongst college-age participants(for a list of cultural life script events, see Rubin, Berntsen, & Hutson, 2009). Our central question in examining the relation-ship of future events to the life script was whether or not the bias towards more positive future events emerges simply as aresult of selecting scripted future but not past events.

1.4. The present study

In this experiment, we compared memories and imagined future events for one’s self, a close friend, and a non-closefriend in order to better understand the role of self-enhancement and cultural life scripts in memory and future thinking.By narrating past and future events for another person, participants engage in similar processes of episodic simulation offuture events without experiencing the same self-enhancement motivations, and without access to the same phenomeno-logical details of the events. However, because a person has positive feelings for close friends, and because some of the antic-ipated future events of the close friend may be shared and have similar valence for the self, two separate other conditionswere created: one in which participants were instructed to write about a close friend and one in which they were instructedto write about a friend with whom the participants are no longer close.

We predicted that features associated with the phenomenal characteristics of an event would be related to richness ofepisodic detail that is generated; less detailed descriptions of future episodes as compared to memories of past episodesmay indicate that future episodic simulation is more difficult that episodic recall. In contrast, emotional valence would bemore affected by self-enhancement biases, resulting in more negative (or less positive) memories of past events and morepositive future event simulations, for the self but not the other.

In addition, future events may be more positive because the cultural life script leads individuals to select overly positivefuture events. This would result in more positive future event simulations when one is thinking about cultural life scriptevents than when imagining other types of future events. We carried out content analyses on participants’ past and futureevent narratives to examine the types of events reported by participants. We were interested in examining whether contentanalysis of reports of past memories and imagined future events would provide a deeper understanding of the types ofevents that participants were reporting, especially with regard to cultural life scripts. Analyzing the content of written nar-ratives also provides an advantage over questionnaire data in that we could examine the actual memories or future simu-lations themselves instead of relying on the participants’ assessments of their memories and imagined future events. Thus, inaddition to the questionnaire data reported, participants wrote full-length descriptions of each episode, which were thencoded for the type of event and for whether or not it was a part of the life script.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Participants

A total of 177 undergraduates at Rutgers University participated (86 female, 89 male, two participants did not report gen-der, age, or ethnicity). Mean age was 19.00 years (SD = 2.11), ranging from 18 to 37 years. Reported ethnicity was 77 Cauca-sian, 13 African American, 54 Asian, 14 Hispanic or Latino, 1 Native American, 4 Middle Eastern, 8 bi-racial, and 4 ‘other.’ Apreliminary analysis found no significant differences between participants of different ethnicities (all F’s < 1.28, all p’s > .27)or genders (all F’s < 1.75, all p’s > .19), and thus ethnicity and gender were not included in subsequent analyses.

2.2. Procedure

Participants completed the study seated individually in a room in front of a computer. The experimenter instructed eachparticipant that he/she would be outside and the participants should call the experimenter if any questions arose. The exper-imental design contained both within-subjects and between-subjects variables. For the within-subjects variable of time per-iod, participants were instructed to write about four events, one in each of the following four time periods: 1 month–1 yearand 5–10 years in both the past and future. The order of the narratives was randomized. Participants were told to write abouta specific event that occurred over the course of less than 1 day and were instructed to write a narrative that was approx-imately two paragraphs in length.

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The between-subjects variable consisted of the protagonist that participants wrote about in their memory and futureevent narratives. In the self condition, participants were instructed to write about events that have occurred and that theyanticipated occurring in their lives. In the close friend condition, participants were instructed to write about past and ex-pected future events in a close friend’s life. In the non-close friend condition, participants were instructed to ‘‘pick a personthat you grew up knowing, but are no longer close with, and write all four events about this person that you know.’’ In all,there were 92 participants in the self condition, 41 in the close friend, and 44 in the non-close friend. The discrepancy in sam-ple size is a result of experimenter error during the initial data collection involving 56 participants in the self condition. Oncethis error was corrected, data from the original participants were retained for its value in content coding of memory andfuture event narratives. The protagonist manipulation was implemented as a between-subjects design instead of a with-in-subjects design because the latter design would require participants to write 12 narratives, which would take them over2 h to reliably write all the narratives and complete extensive questionnaires.

In summary, the self-other manipulation involved a between groups comparison in which each participant either wroteall four narratives about him or herself, about a close friend, or about a friend with whom he or she was no longer close. Thetime period of the events (distant past, distant future, near past, near future) was a within groups comparison, as each par-ticipant described an event from each of these four time frames.

After writing each of the four narratives, participants completed a shortened and revised version of the Memory Experi-ences Questionnaire (MEQ, Sutin & Robins, 2007). This scale includes an exhaustive list of phenomenological features ofmemories that incorporates all of the features that are found in other scales as well as items that are not, such as items relat-ing to visual perspective (see Sutin & Robins, 2010) and psychological distancing. Although the scale is organized into 10 sub-sections, it has also been tested using a two-factor model, with one factor reflecting memory quality and the other reflectingvalence, the two variables of interest in this study.

The MEQ is composed of 63 items, but because participants had to complete this scale after writing each narrative, andbecause it has demonstrated strong internal consistency (Sutin & Robins, 2007), it was shortened to 33 items. The itemsdeemed most representative of each category by all four authors were chosen in an effort to maintain each subcategory suf-ficiently (see Appendix A). Additionally, the wording for questionnaire items was changed for future events and for events inthe other conditions to be appropriate with the narrative reported. For example, the item ‘‘Since it happened, I have talkedabout this event many times’’ was changed to ‘‘If this event were to happen, I would talk about it a lot’’ for future self events,to ‘‘If this event were to happen, my friend would talk about it a lot’’ for future other events, and to ‘‘Since this event hap-pened, my friend has talked about it a lot’’ for past other events. The item ‘‘As I remember the event, I can feel now the emo-tions that I felt then,’’ was changed to ‘‘As I imagine the event, I can feel now the emotions that I would feel then’’ for futureevents and to ‘‘As I imagine the event, I can feel now the emotions that my friend felt then,’’ in the other condition. All ques-tionnaire items were rated on 5-point scales (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree).

2.3. Content coding of narratives

Two different systems of content coding were employed for classifying memory and future event narratives. The first sys-tem indicated whether each narrative described a life script event. Rubin et al. (2009) asked participants to indicate the se-ven most important events expected to occur in a person’s life and constructed a list of 24 events from those that werementioned more than three times during this procedure. Narratives of memories and future events were classified by eventsthat appeared on this list. We followed Berntsen et al.’s (2009) coding system but added the category of graduation becauseof the prevalence of graduation narratives (college, high school, and middle school) in the data set. Two raters classified 25%of the narratives and percent agreement was 97.5%. Discrepancies between coders were resolved in conversation. One ratercompleted classifying the remaining narratives.

The second coding system was used to divide non-life script narratives by the type of event that occurred, and classifiedevery narrative into one category. This method was labeled event type, and was based on the coding method established bySchlagman, Schultz, and Kvavilashvili (2006). Their system used 17 different categories to label involuntary memories. In thecoding method employed in this study, two of their original 17 categories were omitted. The first category, Person, whichdenotes events primarily about other people (Schlagman et al., 2006), was considered inappropriate for this data set in whichthe protagonist was manipulated through instructions. The second category, Objects/Places, used for narratives centered so-lely on an object or a place, was not used simply because no narratives fit this description. In addition, two categories wereadded, unacceptable behavior and medical conditions, which were considered and later eliminated by Schlagman et al. (2006),and were found useful in classifying some narratives in this data set. The classifications were mutually exclusive. Two ratersclassified 25% of the narratives at 90% agreement. Discrepancies between coders were resolved in conversation. One raterthen completed classifying the remaining narratives.

3. Results

This section proceeds in the order of the three topics presented above, namely analyses of phenomenological quality,emotional valence, and event type. The first two sections begin by describing the properties of the scale used before report-ing the tests conducted.

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3.1. Ratings for phenomenological characteristics: quality ratings and the MEQ

As discussed above, participants completed a modified version of the MEQ after each event narrative. The MEQ was di-vided into two factors (Sutin & Robins, 2007): factor 1 measures the quality of the memory and is composed of the followingseven subscales: vividness, coherence, accessibility, sensorydetail, emotionalintensity, visual perspective, and time perspective;factor 2 measures the valence of the memory and is composed of the following three subscales: sharing, distancing, and va-lence. The valence subscale used in this study was composed of two questions about positive valence and two questionsabout negative valence. The negative valence items were reverse coded so that higher scores on all valence items indicatemore positive valence. Due to experimenter error, the valence subscale omitted one of the positive valence items for futurenarratives and both of the positive valence items for distant and near past narratives for 56 of the 92 participants in the selfcondition. This error was corrected in the remaining participants. To account for this error, correlations were computed be-tween positive and negative valence where available. Positive and negative valence correlated strongly with r’s ranging from�.74 to �.85 across the four time periods, all p’s < .001. Thus the valence subscale reported for these 56 participants in thesetwo time frames is composed of only negative valence questions, and was considered an acceptable measure of valence thatis comparable to the data from other participants. The data from these 56 participants are included in all analyses because ofthe value for content coding provided by the additional memory and future event narratives.

There were two concerns in using a two-factor model for the MEQ. First, Sutin and Robins (2007) found that the two-fac-tor model did not fit the scale as well as a 10-factor model. Second, we used a novel elicitation including future events, eventsof others, and directions for a specific time frame. To ensure that the two factors used previously for analyzing MEQ resultswere appropriate, subscales were combined (and reverse-coded where necessary), resulting in ten ratings scores for eachmemory. A reliability analysis was performed using the 7 scores for the quality factor and the 3 scores for the valence factorsin each of the four narrating condition (distant past, near past, distant future, and near future). For the quality subscale, the 7scores demonstrated acceptable reliability across all four narrative conditions, with Cronbach’s a ranging from .77 to .82. Be-cause our hypotheses address quality as an overall measure, and we did not specify hypotheses regarding each subscale,these subscales were combined in figures. However, because other researchers may find this information useful, meansand standard deviations for these seven subscales are provided in Table 1, and analyses were conducted separately for eachsubscale.

3.2. Quality ratings of memory and future event narratives

It was predicted that the difficulty and novelty associated with constructing future events and events about other peoplewould result in fewer details in memories of others and all future events. In other words, past events for the self were pre-dicted to be rated the highest on overall phenomenological quality. To examine how past/future and self/other influence thephenomenological detail, ratings for quality were analyzed in a 2 (temporal direction; past, future) � 2 (temporal distance;near, distant) � 3 (protagonist; self, close friend, non-close friend) � 7 (MEQ quality subscales: vividness, coherence, acces-sibility, sensory detail, emotional intensity, visual perspective, time perspective) multivariate analysis of variance (MANO-VA), with temporal direction, temporal distance, and MEQ quality subscales as within-groups factors and protagonist as abetween-groups factor. As can be seen in Fig. 1, past events were rated higher in quality than future events, Wilks’ k(7,166) = .49, p < .001. Univariate analyses confirm the main effect of past vs. future in all subscales (p < .01) except for emo-tional intensity (p = .38). This main effect was qualified by an interaction suggesting that the difference between past andfuture was stronger for the self than for others, Wilks’ k (14, 332) = .76, p < .001. Univariate analyses confirmed this

Table 1Means (standard deviations) of the seven subscales of the MEQ quality ratings, organized by protagonist and time frame.

Vividness Coherence Accessibility Sensory detail Emotional intensity Visual perspective Time perspective

Distant pastSelf 3.75 (.84) 3.89 (.71) 3.48 (1.09) 3.45 (.78) 3.66 (.96) 3.76 (.84) 3.15 (.83)Close friend 3.68 (.94) 3.71 (.66) 3.58 (.73) 3.50 (.48) 3.50 (.62) 3.05 (.59) 3.64 (.86)Non-close friend 3.27 (1.04) 3.41 (.72) 3.35 (.91) 3.45 (.75) 3.35 (.73) 2.69 (.69) 3.33 (.94)

Near pastSelf 4.25 (.77) 4.15 (.76) 3.93 (.86) 3.96 (.67) 3.73 (1.04) 3.99 (.70) 4.03 (.74)Close friend 3.79 (.95) 3.78 (.76) 3.70 (.85) 3.66 (.64) 3.68 (.69) 3.20 (.69) 3.96 (.72)Non-close friend 3.56 (.76) 3.62 (.57) 3.45 (.83) 3.36 (.64) 3.30 (.82) 2.74 (.68) 3.61 (.89)

Near futureSelf 3.51 (1.01) 3.20 (.84) 3.49 (.82) 3.59 (.72) 3.41 (.92) 3.55 (.81) 3.65 (.72)Close friend 3.31 (.78) 3.14 (.69) 3.20 (.81) 3.50 (.58) 3.46 (.74) 3.07 (.67) 3.51 (.55)Non-close friend 3.34 (.93) 3.09 (.67) 3.12 (.84) 3.39 (.64) 3.28 (.78) 2.92 (.69) 3.25 (.81)

Distant futureSelf 3.13 (.99) 2.96 (.74) 3.00 (.89) 3.33 (.83) 3.63 (.94) 3.24 (.95) 2.70 (.91)Close friend 3.20 (.97) 2.91 (.63) 3.11 (.82) 3.46 (.68) 3.83 (.69) 2.96 (.62) 2.69 (.91)Non-close friend 3.21 (.99) 3.11 (.79) 2.93 (.86) 3.20 (.64) 3.29 (.71) 2.74 (.68) 2.77 (.85)

Fig. 1. Mean quality ratings (combined across subscales) by temporal direction, temporal distance and protagonist. Temporal distance and directionconditions are organized in chronological order for ease of understanding. Error bars indicate standard errors.

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interaction effect for vividness, coherence, and visual perspective (p’s < .01), but not for emotional intensity, accessibility,sensory details, or time coherence (p’s > .16).

Additionally, results revealed that distant events (both past and future) were rated lower in quality than near events, Wil-ks’ k (7, 166) = .61, p < .001, and univariate analyses confirmed this finding for all subscales (p’s < .002) except emotionalintensity (p = .30). This main effect was qualified by a statistically significant temporal distance by protagonist interaction,suggesting that difference between near and distant events was stronger for the self than for the others, Wilks’ k (14,332) = .86, p < .05. Univariate analyses confirmed this interaction for accessibility (p < .05), sensory details (p = .003), andtime coherence (p < .001), but this interaction did not achieve statistical significance for the remaining four subscales,(p’s > .06). Main effects of protagonist showed higher quality ratings for self than for others on six of the seven subscales(excluding time coherence, p = .13), with statistically significant F’s(2,172) ranging from 3.85 to 49.11, all p’s < .05.

In order to interpret the many main effects and interactions, a mixed model simple effects analysis was conducted on theseven combined subscales (with Bonferroni corrections), which revealed significant differences between all three protago-nist groups (self, close friend, and non-close friend) in the near past condition, but no significant difference between groupsin any of the three other time frames (see Fig. 1).

In sum, ratings of quality indicated that, as predicted, past events were rated as higher in quality than future events, nearevents were rated higher in quality than distant events, and that participants in the self condition rated events as higher inquality than the other conditions. This distinction was most pronounced in the near past condition, in which all three groupsdiffered significantly in the order of self > close friend > non-close friend. Although the findings did not apply to all seven sub-scales in every test, the majority of findings suggest differences in quality ratings in predicted ways.

3.3. Valence ratings

As with the quality subscale, a reliability analysis was conducted on the valence subscale of the MEQ to decide whether thethree subscales could be combined. For the valence factor, the 3 scores (distancing, sharing, valence) did not demonstrateacceptable reliability, with Cronbach’s a’s ranging from �.03 to .37 across time periods (past and future, recent and distant).This factor was therefore not retained, and the three items were analyzed separately. Valence and sharing results are re-ported below. Distancing results were deemed inappropriate because the questions refer to perceived distance from theevents (see Appendix A), but the actual distance was manipulated by the experimenters’ instructions. Thus, distancingscores, though they do refer to a feeling of closeness to the current self, are too confounded with actual temporal distanceto be interpretable. Means are reported in Table 2, but they are not analyzed further in this results section.1

It was predicted that self-enhancement would result in more positive ratings of future events, and that this enhancementwould be limited to (or at least more pronounced in) ratings in the self condition.

To examine the self-enhancement of future events for self and others, ratings of valence were analyzed in a 2 (temporaldirection; past, future) � 2 (temporal distance; near, distant) � 3 (protagonist; self, close friend, non-close friend) analysis ofvariance (ANOVA), with temporal direction and temporal distance as within-groups factors and protagonist as a between-groups factor. The ANOVA indicated that future events were rated as significantly more positive than past events,F(1,174) = 42.53, p < .001 (see Fig. 2). This main effect was qualified by a marginally significant temporal direction by

1 The analysis of the distancing measure primarily revealed that events from the distant past and distant future were rated as most distant, not surprisingly.Numerous interactions were also found, and data can be obtained from the first author upon request.

Table 2Means (standard deviations) of the valence, sharing, and distancing subscales of the MEQ, organized by protagonist and time frame.

Valence Sharing Distancing

Distant pastSelf 3.27 (1.39) 2.78 (1.05) 3.43 (.90)Close friend 2.99 (1.07) 2.93 (.83) 2.89 (.75)Non-close friend 3.36 (1.14) 2.69 (.81) 3.24 (.94)

Near pastSelf 3.54 (1.31) 3.36 (.93) 2.25 (.92)Close friend 3.44 (1.15) 3.23 (.70) 2.29 (.80)Non-close friend 3.26 (1.05) 2.58 (.80) 2.66 (.90)

Near futureSelf 3.90 (1.18) 3.45 (.96) 2.19 (.85)Close friend 3.80 (.81) 3.64 (.64) 2.34 (.62)Non-close friend 3.48 (1.00) 3.11 (.90) 2.65 (.78)

Distant futureSelf 4.30 (.95) 3.50 (.93) 3.03 (.96)Close friend 4.22 (.86) 3.86 (.83) 2.57 (.96)Non-close friend 3.71 (.95) 3.28 (.90) 3.15 (.89)

Fig. 2. Mean valence ratings by temporal direction, temporal distance, and protagonist. Temporal distance and direction conditions are organized inchronological order for ease of understanding. Error bars indicate standard errors.

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protagonist interaction, F(2,174) = 2.56, p = .08. As can be seen in Fig. 2, a mixed model simple effects analysis (with Bonfer-roni corrections) revealed significant differences between the self and non-close friend conditions and between the closefriend and non-close friend conditions for future events (when near future and distant future are combined). No significantdifferences were found between self and close friend in future events and no significant differences were found among self,close friend and non-close friend for past events.2

Additionally, a significant interaction between temporal direction and temporal distance emerged, F(1,174) = 12.12,p < .01. As shown in Fig. 2, this interaction indicates the increasing chronological nature of the data such that events farthestin the past were least positive and events farthest in the future were most positive. In sum, ratings of valence gradually in-creased as events progressed chronologically from distant past to distant future, but this increase was significantly more pro-nounced among narratives of self and close friend than among narratives of a non-close friend.

3.4. Sharing ratings

Because sharing was initially conceived as part of the valence subscale, no specific hypotheses were made concerningsharing. As with valence and quality, ratings of sharing were analyzed in a 2 (temporal direction; past, future) � 2 (temporal

2 Given that some of the participants in the self condition did not complete the same valence measure (due to the error reported above), this ANOVA wasperformed again using only participants who completed the entire valence subscale (i.e. 36 instead of 92 participants in the self condition). The same maineffects and interactions were found. One exception is that the temporal direction by protagonist interaction, reported above as marginally significant (p = .08),emerged as statistically significant, F(2,118) = 3.19, p < .05.

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distance; near, distant) � 3 (protagonist; self, close friend, non-close friend) analysis of variance (ANOVA), with temporaldirection and temporal distance as within-groups factors and protagonist as a between-groups factor. The ANOVA indicatedthat future events were significantly more likely to be shared than past events, F(1,174) = 66.62, p < .001. A significant maineffect of protagonist emerged, F(2,174) = 10.09, p < .001, along with a temporal distance by protagonist interaction,F(2,174) = 3.77, p < .05. Bonferroni post hoc tests indicated that participants reported a greater likelihood of sharing theevent in the close friend condition than in the non-close friend condition in all but the distant past time frames(p’s < .05). For near events, participants in the self condition reported a greater likelihood of sharing the event than partici-pants in the non-close friend condition.

Additionally, a significant interaction between temporal direction and temporal distance emerged, F(1,174) = 9.22,p < .01. As Fig. 3 shows, this interaction follows the increasing chronological nature of the data such that events farthestin the past are least shared and events farthest in the future are most shared. In sum, sharing ratings show a similar patternto valence ratings in that events that are farther in the future are more likely to be shared, but this pattern was more pro-nounced in the close friend condition than in the self and non-close friend conditions. The sharing questions specifically askedhow likely the friend was to share the event. Since events of close friends may have already been shared with participants,participants may rate their close friends’ events as more shared than their own, and these results should be treatedcautiously.

3.5. Results of content analysis

This section addresses the role of the types of events reported. To accomplish this goal, results of life script and event typecoding are reported. Then, to assess the influence of life scripts on valence ratings, correlations between valence ratings andlife script and non-life script events were computed.

3.5.1. Life script codingOf the 141 narratives (out of a total 708) that were categorized as life script events, 105 were from the distant future con-

dition (see Table 3). Additionally, as shown in Table 3, self and close friend narratives were more often classified as life scriptevents than non-close friend narratives in the distant past and distant future time frames (proportion scores are used insteadof frequencies for this and other tables because of the differences in sample sizes). Table 4 displays the types of life scriptevents narrated in the distant past and distant future conditions, but because the numbers are much lower than in the eventtype coding, meaningful statistical comparisons were not possible. However, a qualitative look at Table 4 indicates that themost common life script events narrated were marriages and graduations.

3.5.2. Event type codingEach narrative that described a non-life script event was classified into one event type, based on the coding scheme pre-

sented above. A Kruskal–Wallis test compared the distributions of event types among self, close friend, and non-close friendgroups for each time period. Significant differences were only found in the distant past condition, v2 = 10.96, p < .01, andthese differences indicated that participants wrote more memories of leisure/sports activities and of miscellaneous items inthe non-close friend group than in the self and close friend groups. No significant differences were found between these groupsin the three other time frames, all p’s > .54. Thus, all three self/other groups were examined together, separated by timeframe, to test if certain types of memories were more or less common at specific times. This comparison is illustrated in Ta-ble 5. These data are presented for the sake of descriptive statistics, and because the variables are dichotomous and the

Fig. 3. Mean sharing ratings by temporal direction, temporal distance, and protagonist. Temporal distance and direction conditions are organized inchronological order for ease of understanding. Error bars indicate standard errors.

Table 3Life script events as a proportion of total narratives by time frame and protagonist.

Self (n = 92) Close friend (n = 41) Non-close friend (n = 44) Kruskal–Wallis Chi Square (df = 2)

Distant past .12 .18 .02 6.12*

Near past .03 .03 .05 .28Near future .06 .10 .07 .75Distant future .71 .82 .39 20.11**

* p < .05.** p < .001.

Table 4Proportions of life script memories for distant past and distant future events by protagonist.

Distant past Distant future

Life script category Self Close friend Non-close friend Self Close friend Non-close friend

Marriage .00 .02 .00 .24 .24 .18Graduation .02 .04 .02 .20 .20 .07Enter adulthood .01 .00 .00 .00 .07 .00High school .04 .00 .02 .00 .00 .00Begin school .02 .00 .00 .01 .00 .00Have children .00 .02 .00 .02 .10 .00Parent’s death .03 .00 .00 .01 .00 .00Settle on career .00 .00 .00 .13 .17 .04Leaving home .00 .00 .00 .01 .02 .02First job .00 .00 .00 .01 .00 .00Total .13 .10 .05 .63 .80 .32

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comparisons are within subjects, Cochran’s Q statistics are reported. Because many comparisons are made, only tests forwhich p < .01 were considered significant in order to reduce Type I error. As can be seen from Table 1, a number of differenceswere found. Accidents and stressful events were topics used in the past but were very rare in the two future conditions. Schoolnarratives were found almost exclusively in the distant past, and work/university narratives were most common in the nearpast and future. The remaining categories did not differ significantly by time frame, and were less commonly used in general.Narratives about holidays were most common in the near past and future, and narratives classified as miscellaneous weremost common in the distant future, which may reflect a lack of focus on specifics in distant future events. Travelling was mostcommon in the distant past and near future, and going out was a topic discussed in all time frames except in the distant past.

3.6. Relationship between life script events and valence

One potential explanation for why future events are consistently more positive than past events is that scripted, positiveevents are chosen for the distant future conditions. This interpretation is supported by the finding that future events for self

Table 5Event type coding for all non-life script narratives by time frame. Scores reflect proportions due to uneven sample size.

Event type Distant past (n = 143) Near past (n = 167) Near future (n = 160) Distant future (n = 64) Cochran’s Q (df = 3)

School .15 .01 .01 .00 55.66*

Miscellaneous .13 .14 .09 .28 29.26*

Work/university .01 .16 .18 .13 24.18*

Stressful events .09 .03 .01 .00 22.05*

Holidays .01 .07 .04 .00 19.11*

Travelling/journeys .15 .06 .13 .05 16.29*

Accidents including illnesses .08 .03 .00 .02 15.74*

Going out .00 .08 .04 .05 14.63*

Leisure/sports activities .22 .19 .29 .16 9.31Unacceptable behavior .04 .02 .01 .00 8.81Romantic involvement .00 .03 .03 .06 8.58Special occasions .08 .07 .09 .16 8.43Conversations .02 .08 .07 .06 7.80Medical Conditions .00 .01 .00 .00 6.00War/army .00 .00 .01 .02 4.71Death/funerals .01 .01 .00 .02 2.00Births .00 .01 .01 .00 2.00

* p < .01.

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and close friend were both more positive and more commonly featured life script events than future events for a non-closefriend. To test the possibility that future event positivity emerges as a result of choosing life script events, independent-sam-ples t-tests comparing the valence of scripted and non-scripted life events were conducted for each protagonist group (self,close friend, non-close friend). Table 6 shows that life script events were not more positive than non-life script events fornarratives of self and non-close friend. Life script events were more positive than non-life script events for narratives of aclose friend. However, considering that only 7 of the 41 distant future events reported in narratives of a close friend wereof non-life script events, this finding should be interpreted with caution.

Thus, a comparison of life script and non-life script events in the distant future condition suggests that the tendency forthese events to be rated as more positive than other events and to be rated as more positive in the self condition than in thenon-close friend condition cannot be attributed to greater use of life script events. Results for the close friend condition are lessclear and would require follow-up work to fully understand the role of the life script in this condition.

4. Discussion

This study investigated the role that personal goals and plans play in imagining future events. Results support the viewthat personal goals influence not only people’s memories of past events, but also how they envision events in the future. Fourmain findings contribute to this interpretation. First, higher ratings of the phenomenological quality of events in the nearpast and near future were found for self but not for events of friends. Second, ratings of valence indicate the expected tra-jectory of increased valence from the distant past to the distant future, and participants rated future events in the self andclose friend conditions as more positive than in the non-close friend condition. Third, a content analysis demonstrated that,although life script events were more common among narratives of distant future events than in the other time frames,and although life script events were more prevalent among narratives of self and close friend, life script events for the selfwere not more positive than non-life script events. Therefore, the self-enhancement found in distant future events cannot beattributed to reliance on the cultural life script. Finally, the life script was prevalent in the anticipated future events of others.These results will be discussed in turn.

4.1. Episodic simulation and phenomenological quality

The observed effects regarding phenomenological quality (higher ratings for near past and future events for self but notfor friends’ events) fit the predictions of the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis (Addis et al., 2009), both in the dif-ferences found between past and future and in those found between self and the two other conditions. Future simulatedevents contain lower phenomenological quality than past events because the future events involve combining one’s knowl-edge in novel ways. Events that happened most recently have the greatest amount of phenomenological detail available.Analogously, when describing an event experienced by a friend, even if the participant witnessed the scene, he or she isnot privy to all the details experienced by the protagonist, such as the individual’s thoughts or feelings. The non-close friendis even more removed from the participant, and so the participant is less likely to know how the protagonist reacted toevents as they occurred. De Vito, Gamboz, and Brandimonte (2012) compared simulated future events of the self and of afamous other, and found that self events contained a greater amount of phenomenal details than other events. Our studyfound stronger differences between self and other in the past than in the future, and found differences between self andother in the near future but not in the distant future. De Vito et al. (2012) did not manipulate the time of future events,and thus it is not surprising that they found differences between self and other, as participants are more likely to select fu-ture events nearer to the present without instruction (Spreng & Levine, 2006). We suggest that the differences between selfand other are minimized in the distant future because the context of the event is so foreign, and little is left to distinguish theprotagonist conditions.

4.2. Self-enhancement in imagined future events

Both empirical (e.g. Berntsen & Bohn, 2010; D’Argembeau and Van der Linden, 2004; Shao et al., 2010; Wilson & Ross,2001) and theoretical (e.g. Markus & Nurius, 1986; Sedikides & Gregg, 2008; Taylor & Brown, 1988) work has highlightedself-enhancement processes expressed in imagining future events that are substantially better than the present or past. Wil-

Table 6Means (standard deviations) of valence ratings for life script and non-life script events in the distant future.

Life script Non-life script

Mean (SD) n Mean (SD) n t

Self 4.37 (.91) 61 4.16 (1.05) 31 .93Close friend 4.46 (.56) 33 3.07 (1.20) 7 3.01*

Non-close friend 3.87 (.89) 16 3.62 (.99) 28 .84

* p < .05.

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son and Ross (2003), in their temporal self-appraisal theory, describe this self-enhancement as motivated, and demonstratedthat participants not only conceived of the future as better but also remember past failures as farther in the past than pastsuccesses. Wilson, Gunn, and Ross (2009) stressed that the expectation for a better future not only helps a person see life asgetting better, but helps strengthen a positive sense of self by viewing the negative past as far away and defining the self aspartway up an improving trajectory. Thus, positive expectations for the future not only indicate a relationship betweenmemory and future thinking, but they also represent an incorporation of the self into that future thinking, just as the selfis incorporated into memory (Conway, 2005).

The findings in this study extend research on self-enhancement biases in episodic simulation to construction of past andfuture events experienced by a close friend, suggesting this effect is not exclusive to the self. We suggest three possibleexplanations. Individuals may see their success as connected to the success of their friends, in that the improved future willbe much better because it will be shared with close loved ones. Conversely, individuals may define their success partly by thecompany that they keep. In other words, if I have successful friends, it says something about me. The data in this study do notaddress these plausible interpretations. A final possibility is that participants were imagining themselves experiencing thefuture events together with the close friend, making it a positive experience for both of them. Additional research shouldaddress these possible interpretations.

Another finding of interest is that although future events for the non-close friend condition were not as positive as those ofthe self and close friend, they did still demonstrate the pattern of improvement into the future (see Fig. 2). This finding sug-gests that the perception of an improved future is something envisioned for many others, even if not to the same degree asfor one’s self and loved ones. One possible interpretation of this finding builds on Socio-Emotional Selectivity Theory (SST,Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999), which states that in the younger adult years, individuals view the sacrifices in theirlives as necessary steps to achieve later success. People will work longer hours or accept less-than-ideal living or workingsituations in the hope of enjoying the success that will come from it later. This approach also often reflects the realitiesof people in this age group. For example, Robinson and Ryff (1999) tested three age groups (M’s = 19, 46, and 73) for theirexpected well-being in the future, and found that younger adults expected to be better off than middle-aged and older adultson all six tested dimensions of autonomy, positive relations with others, personal growth, purpose in life, environmentalmastery, and self-acceptance. Similarly, Stremlaw, Newby-Clark, and Ross (1998, cited in Newby-Clark & Ross, 2003) foundthat older adults (mean age of 69 years) were idealistic about their futures in ways similar to the participants in this study, afinding that potentially contradicts the approach of viewing future self-enhancement as an age-related effect. However,Stremlaw et al. (1998) also found that approximately 50% of their sample either refused to participate or did not return theirquestionnaires, and many told experimenters that they were not interested in thinking or writing about the future, suggest-ing a major bias in the sample collected, and quite possibly one that relates to negative thoughts about the future. Thus, thetendency to view the future as overly positive found here and in many other studies may be a result of relying on undergrad-uate students for research participants. An important next step in understanding highly positive imagined future events is tomore carefully compare results found with younger adults to results with middle-aged and older adults.

4.3. Future self-enhancement: selection bias or increased positivity?

If overly positive imagined future events are age-related, the question remains as to whether the positivity bias emergesbecause people choose to write about happier events or because people envision themselves being happier in whatever fu-ture circumstance they report. Newby-Clark and Ross (2003) found that participants took longer to generate negative futureevents than positive future events. They suggested that, in the process of constructing a future event, individuals focus ongoals and plans, and use these goals and plans, which are inevitably positive, as a search mechanism for finding an event.Similarly, D’Argembeau and Mathy (2011) found that cuing participants with personal goals led to imagined future eventswith more specific details. As reflected Table 1, imagined events in the distant future much less often included explicit neg-ative events, such as accidents and illnesses and stressful events, but also included fewer day-to-day events, such as holidaysand travelling/journeys. Thus, results support the notion that imagined future events are guided by goals; near future eventswere more likely than distant future events to refer to day-to-day events and distant future events were more likely to referto life script events. However, day-to-day events can bring similar amounts of happiness, and this was reflected in ratings ofvalence for distant future events, which did not differ significantly based on whether events were part of the life script. Theseresults support the notion that participants may have used personal goals or plans as a search mechanism to select an eventabout which to write, but this does not explain the positivity bias reflected in narratives of future events.

4.4. Cultural life script in imagined events of others

Finally, in addition to replicating Berntsen and Bohn’s (2010) work, which found that people rely on the cultural life scriptto imagine their futures, our results demonstrate that people even rely on the cultural life script in imagining the expectedfuture events of others, both close friends and acquaintances. This reliance on life script events in the distant future suggeststhat, in line with temporal construal theory (Trope & Liberman, 2003), the lack of detail associated with the distant futureleads participants to imagine highly schematic events in which phenomenological detail is de-emphasized, and events areconsidered in very broad terms.

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5. Conclusions

This study extends the literature on mental time travel in multiple ways. As discussed above, the comparison betweenself and two types of others enabled an empirical examination of factors involved in episodic future simulation and factorsrelated to self-related biases. The examination of event type and life script memories made it possible to rule out competingexplanations of the valence effects found. By contrasting past and future event narratives for oneself and for others, and byexamining the role of cultural life scripts in the simulation of future events, we found evidence for the role of personal goalsin imagining the future, independent of the specific events that are imagined.

The results reported here support a nuanced approach to episodic future simulation. Past research has stressed the reli-ance of future event simulation on knowledge of the past, recruiting similar brain areas for both processes, but the motiva-tions of the individual have not been fully examined. Our comparisons of event ratings and narrative content for past andfuture events reported from one’s own and another’s perspective highlight the motivational elements of mental time travel.Different patterns in the ratings and the content of the event narratives emerged as a result of whether the self was impli-cated in episodic processing. These findings expand on our knowledge of the processes involved in mental time travel andsuggest new avenues for research into thinking about the future.

Appendix A.

Thirty-three items used from Memory Experiences Questionnaire (Sutin & Robins, 2007)(R) = Reverse-scored item

VividnessMy memory for this event is very vivid.My memory for this event is very detailed.My memory for this event is dim. (R)

CoherenceThe order of events in the memory is clear.I recognize the setting in which my memory takes place.This memory is a blending of many similar, related events rather than a specific memory about a particular event. (R)This memory comes back to me in bits and pieces, not as a logical, coherent story. (R)

AccessibilityThis memory just sprang to my mind when I read the instructions.I really had to search my ‘‘memory bank’’ for this experience.I had to think for a while before I could recall this event.(R)

Sensory DetailAs I remember the event, I can feel now the emotions that I felt then.When I recall this event, I think the same things I thought when the event originally happened.As I remember the event, I can hear the sounds in my mind.As I remember the event, I have a difficult time recalling the particular physical reactions and sensations I had during

the experience. (R)When I recall this event, it does not really feel like I am reliving the experience. (R)

Emotional IntensityThe memory of this event evokes powerful emotions.My emotions are very intense concerning this event.I do not remember having particularly strong emotions at the time of this event.(R)

Visual PerspectiveWhen I visualize this memory, I clearly see this event from my own perspective.I see the experience in the memory through my own eyes.As I remember this event, I feel like an observer watching myself. (R)

Time PerspectiveMy memory for the hour when the event took place is clear.My memory for the year when the event took place is clear.My memory for the day when the event took place is vague. (R)

Sharing

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Since it happened, I have talked about this event many times.I do not think about this memory often. (R)I rarely tell others about this memory. (R)

DistancingWhen I recall this memory, I think, ‘‘that’s not me anymore.’’I feel like the person in the memory is a different person than who I am today.This memory is consistent with who I think I am today. (R)

ValenceThe overall tone of the memory is positive.The experience described in this event is positiveThe experience described in this memory is negative. (R) My feelings at the time were negative. (R)

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