Mental time travel as self-affirmation
Mental time travel as self-affirmation
Academic Abstract: This article integrates and advances the scope of research on the role of mental time travel in bolstering the self. We propose that imagining the self in the future (prospection) or in the past (retrospection) highlights central and positive self-aspects. Thus, bringing to mind one’s future or past broadens the perceived bases of self-integrity and offers a route to self-affirmation. In reviewing corresponding research programs on self-prospection and nostalgia, we illustrate that mental time travel serves to affirm the self in terms of self-esteem, coherence, and control. Mental time travel could be implemented as a source of self-affirmation for facilitating coping and behavior change in several domains such as relationships, health, education, and organizational contexts. Public Abstract: People can mentally travel to their future or to their past. When people imagine what they will be like in the future, or what they were like in the past, they tend to think about themselves in terms of the important and positive attributes that they possess. Thinking about themselves in such an affirming way expands and consolidates their self-views. This broader image of themselves can increase self-esteem (the extent to which one likes who they are), coherence (the extent to which one perceives life as meaningful), and control (the extent to which one feels capable of initiating and pursuing goals or effecting desirable outcomes). Mental time travel, then, has favorable or affirming consequences for one’s self-views. These consequences can be harnessed to modify one’s behavior in such life domains as relationships, health, education, and work.
mental time travel, nostalgia, prospection, retrospection, self-affirmation, self-prospection
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2
Stephan, Elena
7cf39765-78f4-45de-99b3-5a9c857648c3
5 September 2023
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2
Stephan, Elena
7cf39765-78f4-45de-99b3-5a9c857648c3
Sedikides, Constantine and Stephan, Elena
(2023)
Mental time travel as self-affirmation.
Personality and Social Psychology Review.
(doi:10.1177/10888683231203143).
Abstract
Academic Abstract: This article integrates and advances the scope of research on the role of mental time travel in bolstering the self. We propose that imagining the self in the future (prospection) or in the past (retrospection) highlights central and positive self-aspects. Thus, bringing to mind one’s future or past broadens the perceived bases of self-integrity and offers a route to self-affirmation. In reviewing corresponding research programs on self-prospection and nostalgia, we illustrate that mental time travel serves to affirm the self in terms of self-esteem, coherence, and control. Mental time travel could be implemented as a source of self-affirmation for facilitating coping and behavior change in several domains such as relationships, health, education, and organizational contexts. Public Abstract: People can mentally travel to their future or to their past. When people imagine what they will be like in the future, or what they were like in the past, they tend to think about themselves in terms of the important and positive attributes that they possess. Thinking about themselves in such an affirming way expands and consolidates their self-views. This broader image of themselves can increase self-esteem (the extent to which one likes who they are), coherence (the extent to which one perceives life as meaningful), and control (the extent to which one feels capable of initiating and pursuing goals or effecting desirable outcomes). Mental time travel, then, has favorable or affirming consequences for one’s self-views. These consequences can be harnessed to modify one’s behavior in such life domains as relationships, health, education, and work.
Text
Stephan & Sedikides, 2023, PSPR
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
e-pub ahead of print date: 5 September 2023
Published date: 5 September 2023
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was partly supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 1228/19) to the first author.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
Keywords:
mental time travel, nostalgia, prospection, retrospection, self-affirmation, self-prospection
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 482383
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/482383
ISSN: 1088-8683
PURE UUID: a5d792a0-76b7-4def-91bc-ff844ecdc83f
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Date deposited: 28 Sep 2023 16:44
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 02:51
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Author:
Elena Stephan
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