Using an episodic specificity induction to improve children's future thinking.

ABSTRACT: Episodic future thinking (EFT) is the ability to subjectively pre-experience a specific future event. Future-oriented cognition in young children positively predicts physical health and financial status later in life. Can EFT be improved in children, even temporarily? Developmental research emphasizes the importance of thinking about one's own near future to enhance EFT, whereas research in adults suggests benefits reside in constructing a richly detailed event. We bridged the two perspectives to examine whether a procedure, the "episodic specificity induction" (ESI), could be adapted to encourage an episodic mode of thinking in children, benefitting performance on a variety of subsequent EFT tasks. The present study implemented a child-friendly ESI in which children mentally simulated a f

SUBMITTER: Tanguay AFN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10622774 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature