Journal article
Everyday Thoughts in Time: Experience Sampling Studies of Mental Time Travel
Roy F Baumeister, Wilhelm Hofmann, Amy Summerville, Philip T Reiss, Kathleen D Vohs
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin | SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC | Published : 2020
Abstract
Time is among the most important yet mysterious aspects of experience. We investigated everyday mental time travel, especially into the future. Two community samples, contacted at random points for 3 (Study 1; 6,686 reports) and 14 days (Study 2; 2,361 reports), reported on their most recent thought. Both studies found that thoughts about the present were frequent, thoughts about the future also were common, whereas thoughts about the past were rare. Thoughts about the present were on average highly happy and pleasant but low in meaningfulness. Pragmatic prospection (thoughts preparing for action) was evident in thoughts about planning and goals. Thoughts with no time aspect were lower in so..
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Funding Acknowledgements
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Funding for this research was provided by a Templeton Foundation grant to Martin Seligman and a subgrant to Roy Baumeister.