Self-defining future projections: Exploring the identity function of thinking about the future
Self-defining future projections: Exploring the identity function of thinking about the future
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DOI：
10.1080/09658211.2011.647697
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发表时间：
2012-01-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.1
通讯作者：
Van der Linden, Martial
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
D'Argembeau, Arnaud;Lardi, Claudia;Van der Linden, Martial
将自己投射到有意义的未来事件中的行为可能会极大地促进一个人的自我意识和认同感。然而，如果记忆，特别是自我定义记忆（SDM）在奠定自我方面的作用现已得到充分确立，那么预期未来事件的身份功能却相对较少受到关注。本文介绍了自定义未来投影（SDFP）的构造来解决这个问题。两项研究表明，人们可以轻松识别他们经常思考的重大未来事件，并传达有关他们作为个人的核心信息。此外，一个人构建 SDM 的特定风格在 SDFP 中也有类似的体现，这表明这两种类型的事件都可以用来扎根自我。值得注意的是，那些更倾向于从过去的经历中提取意义的人也会更多地思考想象中的未来事件的潜在影响。结果进一步表明，随着时间的推移，SDM 和 SDFP 都会产生强烈的个人连续性意识，并且与自尊有意义地相关。这些发现共同支持了这样一种观点，即一个人的自我意识和认同感在一定程度上是由对未来重大事件的预期所滋养的。
The act of projecting oneself into meaningful future events may significantly contribute to a person's sense of self and identity. Yet if the role of memories, in particular self-defining memories (SDMs), in grounding the self is now well established, the identity function of anticipated future events has received comparatively little attention. This article introduces the construct of self-defining future projection (SDFP) to address this issue. Two studies show that people can readily identify significant future events that they frequently think about and that convey core information about who they are as individuals. Furthermore, a person's particular style of constructing SDMs is similarly manifested in SDFPs, suggesting that both types of events can be used to ground the self. Notably, people who display a stronger tendency to extract meaning from their past experiences also reflect more about the potential implications of imagined future events. The results further demonstrate that SDMs and SDFPs both give rise to a strong sense of personal continuity over time and are meaningfully related to self-esteem. Together these findings lend support to the idea that a person's sense of self and identity is in part nourished by the anticipation of significant future events.