The future and me: Imagining the future and the future self in adolescent decision making

Feeling connected to one’s future self and imagining one’s personal future (Episodic Future Thinking, EFT), are known to attenuate short-sighted decision making in adults. Less is known about how these constructs overlap, or how they relate to impulsivity in adolescents. This study investigated how future self-connectedness, EFT and a number of other future-oriented constructs relate to one another and to the tendency to discount the future. 175 adolescents (11 – 18 years) completed measures of EFT, future self-connectedness, time attitudes, temporal focus, depressive symptomatology and temporal discounting. EFT and future self-connectedness were significantly correlated, indicating adolescents who felt connected to their future selves imagined the future with greater episodic richness. EFT and future self-connectedness independently predicted discounting. Weak associations between the future-oriented constructs, and their differential relations with discounting, indicate these measures assess distinct, but loosely related temporal constructs. Results suggest that combined interventions may improve future-oriented decision making in adolescents.