The development of episodic future thinking and future-oriented decision making

我们经常面临这样的选择：是做一件有立竿见影的事情（例如，花钱买一份食物），还是做一件没有立竿见影的事情（例如，存钱买房子）。选择较小的即时奖励而不是较大的未来奖励被描述为“贴现”较大的未来奖励（即，延迟奖励的价值被视为较低，因为它是如此遥远的时间）。心理学家对这种折扣进行了广泛的研究，尤其是因为人们在实验中做出的选择可以预测各种潜在的有害现实行为（例如，暴饮暴食、赌博、滥用药物）。心理学家特别感兴趣的是找出哪些心理过程可以减少折扣，因为这可以帮助他们制定适当的干预措施。有人声称，对未来的一种特殊思考在支持审慎决策方面起着特殊作用：即情景未来思维（EFT）。EFT包括在一个人的脑海中想象自己未来的特定事件，即在事件发生之前的心理“预体验”。事实上，对成年人的研究表明，鼓励人们断断续续地思考未来有助于减少折扣，这些发现开始形成一些新的干预措施的基础。小孩子很难做出谨慎的选择。低估未来奖励的倾向在整个童年时期逐渐减少，在青春期也会发生变化，16岁的人比14岁的人更有可能做出谨慎的选择。然而，到目前为止，我们还没有完全理解这些面向未来的决策的重要改进背后的发展变化。EFT技能首先在4到5岁左右出现，并且，就像面向未来的决策一样，EFT在青春期继续提高。然而，目前还不知道EFT的发展和决策的发展是如何联系在一起的。本项目将在一系列实验中首次研究这一问题，这些实验将探索儿童和青少年的EFT能力是否与他们低估未来奖励的倾向有关。我们还将通过对比EFT和其他思维方式对贴现行为的影响，来测试鼓励儿童和青少年对未来进行情景性思考是否能提高他们的决策能力。最后，该项目将进一步检验一个未经检验的假设，该假设与面向未来的决策的发展变化有关：年幼的孩子更有可能低估未来的奖励，因为对他们来说，未来的时间比大一点的孩子更遥远。现有的研究表明，成年人对未来奖励的低估倾向可能有所不同，部分原因是他们对遥远未来的感觉有多遥远。然而，我们不知道这是否可以解释年龄差异。因此，我们将研究未来感觉的任何发展差异是否与EFT技能有关，更具体地说，年幼的孩子在想象未来事件方面存在困难，这意味着未来的奖励在时间上似乎非常遥远。这个项目不仅将揭示决策过程中重要的发展变化，还将帮助心理学家了解谨慎选择的过程和EFT的功能。这种理解对于制定干预措施以加强儿童、青少年和成人面向未来的决策至关重要。

We are often faced with a choice between doing something that has an immediate reward (e.g., spending money on a treat) and doing something that has no immediate benefit but is in the longer-term more advantageous (e.g., saving to buy a house). Choosing the smaller immediate reward over the larger, future reward has been described as "discounting" the larger future reward (i.e., the value of the delayed reward is seen as lower because of how far away in time it is). Such discounting has been extensively studied by psychologists, not least because the choices people make in experiments are predictive of various sorts of potentially harmful real-world behavior (e.g., overeating, gambling, substance abuse). Psychologists are particularly interested in finding out which psychological processes may reduce discounting because this can help them develop appropriate interventions. It has been claimed that a particular sort of thought about the future plays a special role in supporting prudent decision making: what is termed episodic future thinking (EFT). EFT involves imagining in one's mind's eye specific events in one's own future, i.e., mentally "pre-experiencing" events before they happen. Indeed, studies with adults have suggested that encouraging people to think episodically about the future can help reduce discounting, with these findings beginning to form the basis of some novel interventions. Young children have difficulty making prudent choices. The tendency to discount future rewards decreases gradually across childhood and also changes over adolescence, with 16-year-olds being more likely to make prudent choices than 14-year-olds. However, as yet, we do not fully understand the developmental changes that lie behind these important improvements in future-oriented decision making. EFT skills first emerge around 4 to 5 years, and, like future-oriented decision making, EFT continues to improve into adolescence. However, nothing is currently known about how the development of EFT and the development of decision making are linked. This project will examine this issue for the first time in a series of experiments that explore whether children's and adolescents' EFT abilities are linked to their tendency to discount future rewards. We will also test whether encouraging children and adolescents to think episodically about the future enhances their decision making, by contrasting the effects of EFT versus other sorts of thinking on discounting behavior. Finally, the project will examine a further untested hypothesis regarding developmental changes in future-oriented decision making: that younger children are more likely to discount future rewards because times in the future feel farther away to them than to older children. Existing research suggests that adults may differ in their tendency to discount future rewards in part because of differences in how far away the distant future feels to them. However, we do not know if this can explain age differences. We will thus examine whether any developmental differences in how far away the future feels are linked to EFT skills and, more specifically, the idea that difficulties younger children have in imagining events in their futures means that future rewards seem very distant in time. This project will not only shed light on important developmental changes in decision making, it will also help psychologists understand the processes underlying prudent choice and the function of EFT. Such understanding is crucial for developing interventions to enhance future-oriented decision making in children, adolescents, and adults.