Thinking about the past and the future: A developmental study of temporal asymmetries

我们似乎更关心未来而不是过去。例如，我们可能不关心过去非常痛苦的牙痛，但在未来尽量避免哪怕是轻微的牙痛。哲学家们一直在争论，我们对未来的偏见是不合理的，还是不连贯的，或者最好用进化论的术语来解释(例如，让我们为即将到来的事情做好有效的准备)。然而，这种偏见不仅仅是一种哲学上的好奇，而且可能会对我们的日常判断产生令人惊讶的影响：例如，心理学研究的结果表明，如果一个人正在决定对他们的工作收取什么费用，那么在其他条件相同的情况下，S/他已经完成的工作比S/他还没有完成的工作收取的费用会更低。这是因为我们似乎比过去更看重未来的事件。再举一个例子，如果我们正在决定某人做了错事应该受到多大的惩罚，我们可能会认为，如果错事发生在未来而不是过去，那么更多的惩罚是合适的。我们认为，与类似的过去行为相比，未来的行为更值得赞扬和指责，也更值得深思熟虑。此外，未来的事件在时间上感觉比过去相同距离的事件更近：圣诞节前两周，它似乎非常近，而圣诞节后两周，这个节日可能会感觉像是遥远的过去。这些现象可以被集体描述为判断中的时间不对称，并被解释为对未来更普遍的偏见的一部分。研究人员指出，我们花更多的时间思考未来，而不是过去，而且我们把自己描绘成走向未来，远离过去，这是这种偏见的进一步证据。然而，有理由相信，这种偏见可能不会出现在幼儿身上，可能只会随着发育而出现。本项目的目的是研究这些类型的时间不对称在儿童和青少年中的发展情况。研究这些对儿童的影响将为探索年轻人是否比成年人更不面向未来这一问题提供了一种新的方式。此外，它将提供一种独特的方法来测试一些关于为什么会发生时间不对称的说法。在最初的初步研究的基础上，该项目将探索儿童最初似乎更重视未来事件而不是过去的时间，判断未来事件在时间上似乎比过去事件更接近，在考虑未来与过去时感觉更多情感，并判断未来的行为比过去的行为更值得赞扬或指责。它还将检查是否所有的不对称都来自同一个年龄，或者当思考过去和未来时感受到的情绪差异是否最先出现，并可以解释其他不对称。此外，它还将探索思维的其他方面是否存在发展变化，这些变化被认为表明了时间上的偏见：思考未来与过去的时间长短，以及将自己表现为走向未来而远离过去的倾向。它将研究这种变化是否与时间不对称的出现密切相关。这些研究将是第一个在儿童身上进行的研究，将为儿童思维的根本变化提供新的证据；此外，在发展背景下研究时间不对称将有助于我们解释为什么会发生这些现象。

We seem to care more about the future than the past. For example, we may be unconcerned about a very painful toothache that we had in the past, but go out of our way to avoid even a mild toothache in the future. Philosophers have debated whether the fact that we are biased toward the future is irrational or incoherent, or is best explained in evolutionary terms (e.g., as allowing us to prepare effectively for what is to come). However, this bias is not merely a philosophical curiosity, but one that is likely to have a surprising impact on our everyday judgments: e.g., the findings of psychological research imply that if someone is deciding what to charge for their work, all other things being equal s/he will charge less for work s/he has already completed than for work s/he has yet to carry out. This is because we seem to value events in the future more than in the past. To give another example, if we are deciding how much someone should be punished for doing something wrong, we are likely to think more punishment is appropriate if the wrongdoing lies in the future than the past. We see future acts as more deserving of praise and blame, and more deliberate, than similar past acts. Moreover, events in the future feel closer in time than events an equivalent distance in the past: two weeks before Christmas, it seems to be very close, whereas two weeks after Christmas the holiday may feel as though it is in the distant past. These phenomena can be described collectively as temporal asymmetries in judgments, and have been interpreted as being part of a more general bias toward the future. Researchers point to the fact that we spend more time thinking about the future than the past, and that we represent ourselves as moving toward the future and away from the past, as further evidence for such a bias. However, there are reasons to believe that this bias may not be present in young children and may only emerge with development. The aim of this project is to examine the development of these types of temporal asymmetries in children and adolescents. Studying these effects in children will provide a new way of exploring the issue of whether younger people are less future-oriented than adults. Moreover, it will provide a unique way of testing some claims about why temporal asymmetries occur. Building on initial pilot studies, the project will explore when children first seem to value future events more than the past, judge that future events seem closer in time than past events, feel more emotion when considering the future versus the past, and judge that future actions are more deserving of praise or blame than past actions. It will also examine whether all of the asymmetries are present from the same age or whether differences in emotions felt when thinking about the past versus the future appear first and can explain other asymmetries. Furthermore, it will explore whether there are developmental changes in other aspects of thinking that have been taken to be indicative of a temporal bias: the amount of time spent thinking about the future versus the past and the tendency to represent ourselves as moving toward the future and away from the past. It will examine whether such changes go hand-in-hand with the emergence of temporal asymmetries. These studies will be the first to be conducted with children and will provide a new body of evidence about fundamental changes in children's thinking; moreover studying temporal asymmetries in a developmental context will help us to explain why these phenomena occur.