Feeling connected to one's future self and imagining one's personal future (Episodic Future Thinking, EFT), are known to attenuate short-sighted decision making in adults. Less is known about how these constructs overlap, or how they relate to impulsivity in adolescents.This study investigated how future self-connectedness, EFT and a number of other futureoriented constructs relate to one another and to the tendency to discount the future. 175 adolescents (11 -18 years) completed measures of EFT, future self-connectedness, time attitudes, temporal focus, depressive symptomatology and temporal discounting. EFT and future self-connectedness were significantly correlated, indicating adolescents who felt connected to their future selves imagined the future with greater episodic richness. EFT and future self-connectedness independently predicted discounting. Weak associations between the future-oriented constructs, and their differential relations with discounting, indicate these measures assess distinct, but loosely related temporal constructs. Results suggest that combined interventions may improve future-oriented decision making in adolescents.

Imaginary worlds allow us to safely develop, crystallize, and criticize our moral values – at times even serving as catalysts for change in the real world. Fans of imaginary worlds sometimes form groups to advocate for social change in the real world, and it is part of Leftist ideology to imagine radically different, possible futures aligned around shared moral values.

Political ideology in the United States is typically described as a spectrum. This metaphor implies that the people who place themselves along the spectrum differ in degree from each other; an individual who places themselves all the way on the left of the spectrum, is an extreme version of another closer to the middle. Political polarization and elite extremism are on the rise in the United States (e.g., Finkel et al., 2020), and attention to political polarization has fueled efforts to understand the extreme right (e.g, Forscher & Kteily, 2020), and driven attempts to identify whether the extreme left may or may not share authoritarian tendencies with those on the extreme right (Conway et al., 2018; Costello et al., 2021; Badaan et al., 2020; Nilsson & Jost, 2020). The central focus of psychology on the extreme Left has been on Left-wing authoritarianism¬—whether it exists, is appropriately named, or logically possible (Conway et al., 2018; Costello et al., 2021; Badaan & Jost, 2020; Nilsson & Jost, 2020). However, this approach sidesteps a longstanding distinction that exists among politically left-leaning individuals–that between Leftists and Liberals (see Menand, 2021). While Leftists explicitly describe themselves as completely separate from Liberals¬, who they claim cooperate with existing institutions and seek insufficient social change (Ture, 1966), Liberals may more easily see themselves as part of a larger left-leaning political group, such that they express surprise and even anger when Leftists do not support their political agenda (Capeheart, 2020). It is the aim of this paper to investigate the psychological differences between Leftists and Liberals (i.e., in terms of ideology, morality, political preferences, and judgments of group boundaries) to further our understanding of how these two historical groups may differ and interact, and help us understand political ideology, identity, and radicalism, more broadly.

Gender and age are salient social categories from early in development. However, whether children’s beliefs about gender and age intersect, such that gender stereotypes might be expressed differently when asked about children (as compared to adults) has not been investigated. Here, in a pre-registered study (N = 297), we examined if young children (3.0 – 6.9-year-olds, Mage = 5.03 years, n = 145) and adults (n = 152) across Massachusetts were more likely to express gender stereotypes when presented with child or adult stimuli. Participants were presented with 20 questions about gender stereotyped behavioral and psychological properties and selected their response (male or female) for each question by selecting between four child faces (2 White boys, 2 White girls) or four adult faces (2 White men, 2 White women) across two separate blocks. Overall, both children and adults expressed gender stereotypes above chance, and, in children, expression of stereotypes increased across the age range. Although neither children nor adults applied gender stereotypes differently to child vs. adult visual stimuli, all participants were more likely to apply gender stereotypes when that stereotype was child-centric (e.g., about doing childish activities). Our results suggest that children could be vulnerable to stereotype content from an early age; however, future research should explore whether children show this same age-invariant pattern when both gender and age are made salient and directly contrasted (e.g., by presenting men, women, boys, and girls simultaneously).