Experiencing the temporally extended self: Initial support for the role of affective states, vivid mental imagery, and future self-continuity in the prediction of academic procrastination

Blouin-Hudon, Eve-Marie C.; Pychyl, Timothy A.

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2015.06.003

Cited by 75 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…That is, procrastinators have a higher likelihood of perceiving future self than they do a stranger and, as a result, can easily disregard the negative consequences of their present actions on future self (e.g. Sirois & Pychyl, ; Blouin‐Hudon & Pychyl, ). A well‐documented finding from the mental imagery literature indicates that people who are able to create vivid mental images also experience enhanced affective states regarding these images (Sheikh & Kunzendorf, ; Kosslyn et al, ; Damasio, ; Holmes, Mathews, Dalgleish, & Mackintosh, ; Holmes, Coughtrey, & Connor, ; Blair, Ma, & Lenton, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Quasi‐experimental interventions have also found that looking to the future can be beneficial for workplace proactivity (Strauss & Parker, ), and making the future more imminent could motivate current action (Lewis & Oyserman, ). As a consequence, discontinuities within the temporal sense of self can seriously disrupt the organisation of incoming information and result in the maladaptive planning of everyday behaviours (Blatt & Quinlan, ; Damasio, ; Greenwald, ), lead to unethical choices (Hershfield et al, ), decrease overall well‐being (Singer & Bluck, ), and lead to more procrastination (Blouin‐Hudon & Pychyl, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since a lack of focus to the future partly characterises procrastination (Sirois & Pychyl, ; Blouin‐Hudon & Pychyl, ), the question remains: what are people who procrastinate missing in order to feel more similar and connected to the future self? Interestingly, work by Ersner‐Hershfield, Wimmer, and Knutson () suggests that individuals make better decisions for future self in terms of retirement savings when they perceive future self more clearly.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This literature directly supports the claim that vivid mental images foster a sense of connection to others by facilitating access to another's emotional states. Since future self can be perceived as an “other” (Sirois & Pychyl, ; Blouin‐Hudon & Pychyl, ), mental imagery can enable present self to regulate behaviours within a broader cognitive‐affective scope across subjective time and increase future self‐continuity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since procrastination is partly characterised by a lack of connection to future self (Sirois & Pychyl, ; Blouin‐Hudon & Pychyl, ), we designed a mental imagery manipulation aimed at increasing future self‐continuity to reduce procrastination. This research is the first to explore ways to decrease the present and future self gap that partly characterises procrastination.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Mental Imagery Intervention to Increase Future Self‐Continuity and Reduce Procrastination

Blouin-Hudon

Pychyl

2016

Applied Psychology

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This research examined how mental imagery practice can increase future selfcontinuity to reduce procrastination. A total of 193 undergraduate students were randomly assigned to a present-focused meditation or to a future selffocused mental imagery condition. Participants in both conditions were asked to listen to their respective audio recording twice per week for four consecutive weeks and to complete a pre-intervention, half-point, and post-intervention questionnaire. At the four-week mark, hierarchical regression analyses revealed that both future self-continuity and empathic perspective taking were significantly higher for the mental imagery condition than the meditation condition. While vividness of future self moderated change in future selfcontinuity, affective empathy for future self mediated the relation between vividness of future self and future self-continuity. Lastly, only empathic perspective taking was a significant moderator of change in procrastination across time. The influence of empathy and future self-continuity on procrastination is discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

A Mental Imagery Intervention to Increase Future Self‐Continuity and Reduce Procrastination

Blouin-Hudon

Pychyl

2016

Applied Psychology

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Insufficient task‐outcome association promotes task procrastination through a decrease of hippocampal–striatal interaction

Zhang

Becker

Chen

et al. 2018

Human Brain Mapping

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Theories on procrastination propose that associating tasks with higher valued incentive outcomes results in less task procrastination. However, it remains unknown how representation of incentive outcomes and task‐outcome association are mediated by the human brain. Using event‐related functional magnetic resonance imaging, we scanned human participants while they were thinking about both tasks and the incentive outcomes each task can yield in an unconstrained way. Results showed that tasks that are more likely to be procrastinated are associated with less value in incentive outcomes. Interestingly, procrastination was more likely if it was more difficult for participants to associate a task with its valued incentives when thinking about the task (i.e., the decreased task‐outcome association). On the neural level, higher value of rewarding outcomes was correlated with increased putamen activations, which further negatively predicted task procrastination. On the other hand, when participants were associating tasks with the incentive outcomes, the decreasing task‐outcome association corresponded to decreasing activation in putamen, and a decreasing hippocampus‐putamen coupling which further mediated the effect of the insufficient task‐outcome association on procrastination. In particular, the current findings show that procrastination is more likely when people are less able to associate tasks with highly valued incentives, which is accompanied by reduced hippocampal–striatal interactions during task construction.

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Future self‐continuity and depression among college students: The role of presence of meaning and perceived social support

Xue

Yun

Fan

et al. 2023

Journal of Adolescence

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IntroductionFuture self‐continuity has been shown to have a protective effect against depression. This study aims to investigate the longitudinal relationship between future self‐continuity and depression among college students, and to explore the mediating role of the presence of meaning and the moderating role of perceived social support.MethodsWe conducted two studies in China in 2022 and 2023. Study 1 was a longitudinal cross‐lagged study that examined the relationship between future self‐continuity and depression among 173 participants (49.13% females, Mage = 19.39, SD = 1.63). Study 2 was a cross‐sectional study that explored the mediating role of the presence of meaning and the moderating role of perceived social support among 426 participants (48.59% females, Mage = 19.30, SD = 1.60).ResultsStudy 1 showed that future self‐continuity (T1) could significantly predict depression (T2), but depression (T1) could not predict future self‐continuity (T2). Study 2 showed that after controlling for gender, the presence of meaning mediated the relationship between future self‐continuity and depression, whereas perceived social support moderated the first half of the mediated model's pathway and the direct pathway.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that enhancing the future self‐continuity of college students and increasing the level of presence of meaning are effective measures for alleviating depression. Meanwhile, educators and families are called upon to provide more social support to college students.

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Experiencing the temporally extended self: Initial support for the role of affective states, vivid mental imagery, and future self-continuity in the prediction of academic procrastination

Cited by 75 publications

References 50 publications

A Mental Imagery Intervention to Increase Future Self‐Continuity and Reduce Procrastination

A Mental Imagery Intervention to Increase Future Self‐Continuity and Reduce Procrastination

Insufficient task‐outcome association promotes task procrastination through a decrease of hippocampal–striatal interaction

Future self‐continuity and depression among college students: The role of presence of meaning and perceived social support

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