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

我们经常面临这样的选择：要么做一些有立竿见影的回报的事情(例如，把钱花在款待上)，要么做一些没有直接好处但从长远来看更有利的事情(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，被描述为对较大的未来奖励“打折”(即，延迟奖励的价值被认为较低，因为它在时间上有多远)。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预示着现实世界中各种潜在的有害行为(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能会减少折扣，因为这可以帮助他们制定适当的干预措施。有人声称，一种关于未来的特殊思维在支持谨慎决策方面发挥着特殊作用：即所谓的情节式未来思维(EFT)。EFT包括在一个人的脑海中想象自己未来的具体事件，即在事件发生之前在精神上“预先经历”。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，这些发现开始成为一些新干预措施的基础。年幼的孩子很难做出谨慎的选择。这种对未来奖励贴现的倾向在整个童年期间逐渐减少，在青春期也发生了变化，16岁的孩子比14岁的孩子更有可能做出谨慎的选择。然而，到目前为止，我们还不完全了解在面向未来的决策制定方面这些重要改进背后的发展变化。EFT技能最初出现在4到5岁左右，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的发展与决策的发展是如何联系在一起的。这个项目将在一系列实验中第一次研究这个问题，这些实验探索儿童和青少年的EFT能力是否与他们对未来奖励贴现的倾向有关。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断断续续地思考未来是否会增强他们的决策能力。最后，该项目将检验关于面向未来的决策过程中的发展变化的另一个未经检验的假设：年龄较小的孩子更有可能对未来的奖励掉以轻心，因为他们比年龄较大的孩子感觉未来的时间更遥远。现有的研究表明，成年人对未来回报的贴现倾向可能有所不同，部分原因是他们对遥远的未来感觉有多远。然而，我们不知道这是否能解释年龄差异。因此，我们将研究未来感觉有多远的任何发展差异是否与EFT技能有关，更具体地说，年龄较小的孩子在想象未来事件方面存在困难的想法意味着未来的回报在时间上似乎非常遥远。这个项目不仅将阐明决策过程中重要的发展变化，还将帮助心理学家理解审慎选择的潜在过程和EFT的功能。这样的理解对于制定干预措施以加强儿童、青少年和成人的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.