A Terrible Future: Episodic Future Thinking and the Perceived Risk of Terrorism

Abstract

Terrorism is a salient risk source in 21st century life and may deter tourists from visiting certain destinations. How people perceive the risk of a future terror attack abroad, and thus their traveling decisions, may be influenced by whether they think about the future in specific and personal terms (episodic future thinking) or in more general, abstract terms (semantic future thinking). In a pre-registered experiment (N = 277) we explored the potential impact of episodic future thinking on the perceived risk of terror attacks abroad. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: (1) An episodic future thinking-condition, where participants were asked to imagine a specific, terror-related personal episode that might occur in the future while traveling abroad; (2) a semantic future thinking-condition, where participants were asked to think more abstractly about terror events that might occur in the future; (3) an episodic counterfactual thinking-condition, where participants were asked to imagine a specific, terror-related personal episode that might have occurred in the past while traveling abroad and (4) a passive control condition. Participants indicated their perceived risk of six different future terror attacks occurring abroad. The manipulation checks suggest that the experimental manipulations functioned as intended. Contrary to the central hypothesis of the study, there were no differences in the perceived risk of terror attacks between the conditions. These results run counter to previous research and do not support the idea that how people think about the future influences their perceived risk of future dramatic events. Potential limitations and implications are discussed.

I Can See Clearly Now: Episodic Future Thinking and Imaginability in Perceptions of Climate-Related Risk Events

“…To summarize, there was no support for an effect of EFT on perceived risk or behavioral intentions, and no support for any interaction with either imaginability or form of risk perception. Contrary to our hypotheses and most prior research, but consistent with Bø and Wolff (2019), the results do not support an effect of EFT on perceived risk, and do not suggest any moderation of this effect by the imaginability of a risk event.…”

“…One example is the measurement of risk perception, which was operationalized using general measures, reflecting the importance of both perceived probability and perceived severity (Brun, 1994). These measures are also consistent with the original study on the effect of EFT on the perceived risk of terrorism and were thus suitable to follow up explanations for the results in that study (Bø and Wolff, 2019). If EFT primarily increases the perceived probability of the consequences, but not the perceived severity of the consequences, this may explain why there were no effects in our study, because perceived risk is strongly influenced by probability neglect.…”

“…A potential precursor to risk perception which has been explored in prior research is episodic future thinking (EFT; Lee et al, 2018;Bø and Wolff, 2019). EFT is a form of future-oriented thinking which involves imagining specific episodes that may occur in the future (Atance and O'Neill, 2001).…”

“…The research on EFT has been focused on its association with decision making, with studies suggesting that EFT helps people make long-term decisions which prioritize larger, later rewards over immediate, smaller rewards (Suddendorf and Corballis, 1997;Daniel et al, 2015;Bulley et al, 2016;Stein et al, 2018;. While this literature has generally emphasized potential positive futures, imagining negative futures may impact how people comprehend adverse outcomes (Bø and Wolff, 2019). There are clear-cut reasons to argue that engaging in EFT may impact how people understand climate change as a hazard.…”

“…In addition to testing the effect of EFT on perceived risk, we also wished to pursue a possible explanation to findings in a previous study on EFT (Bø and Wolff, 2019). In that study, Bø and Wolff tested the effect of EFT on the perceived risk of future terror attacks, and found no difference compared to an SFT-condition, an active control condition or a passive control condition.…”