Remembering future life goals: Retrospective future thinking affects life goal qualities

This article was authored by Ayleen Roderer, Lynn Ann Watson, and Annette Bohn. The research described in this article is build on the methodology of Retrospective Future Thinking: Remembering the future from a perspective as if it had already occurred. Here, we examined how thinking retrospectively about the future affects the goals we think of. This article was published in the international peer-reviewed journal Acta Psychologica in 2022.

First, you will find the scientific abstract which is a summary of the entire article as it was published in the journal. Afterwards, you will find a short description of the article in a easier language and a focus on “what does this mean?”.

Abstract – A summary of the research for the journal
Personal goals are important for the construction and organization of episodic future thought. This study examines the impact of two future thinking perspectives on qualities of mental goal representations. Here, 142 participants (M_age = 21.9 years) reported on the content and characteristics of five life goals either retrospectively, imagining goals from the perspective of their 100-year-old self, or prospectively from the perspective of their current self. Results indicate that retrospectively reported life goals relied more on schematized knowledge, were dated to occur later in life, and were perceived as more self-concordant with increasing distance from the present. Independent of condition, more distant goals were rated as more difficult, less likely to occur, and were associated with lower self-efficacy. This study provides the first evidence that the point in life from which you consider your own future affects the qualities of mental goal representations, suggesting that retrospective future thinking serves as a form of psychological distancing.

And what does this mean?

We spend a lot of time thinking about our future everyday. What is it that we think about? What is it that comes up in our minds? Research has shown that a lot of our thoughts about the future are somehow related to the goals we have. In this study, we took a closer look at how personal goals and future thoughts are related. Usually, we think forward in time to imagine goals in the future. Here, we explored whether it changes our future goals when we think about the future from a perspective as if it had already been experienced.

We hypothesized that engaging in a retrospective perspective would change what and how we think about future goals. Based on Construal Level Theory, we assumed that retrospective future thinking is a perspective that is more psychologically distant to the present self (yourself right now) than thinking prospectively about the future from the perspective of your present self. If this is true, then thinking about the future retrospectively (= more distant perspective) increases the psychological distance and should change affect the way we think about the future. We assumed that retrospective future thinking compared to prospective future thinking shifts from our current self that focuses more on details and the near future to a more distant perspective that reflects more on personal life goals that are more schematized, more distant, and more personally important.

To investigate this, we collected data from 142 participants (age 18 to 25) in an online study. Half of all participants were assigned to a prospective future thinking group and the other half to a retrospective future thinking group. Both groups were asked to write down five goals that they would like to happen during their life. For each goal, they wrote a brief title and rated the characteristics of the goals on scales such as how difficult it is to achieve this goal. Furthermore, they indicated whether they pursued the goal because they want to or whether they think they need to or are supposed to (self-concordance).

Does the perspective change what and how we think about future goals?

Yes. Thinking retrospectively compared to prospectively about the future resulted in changes in when goals were expected to happen across the life span and how they were characterized.

The five most common goals people reported (independently of group) were…

Settle on career	Having children	College	Marriage	Buying property

Overall, around half of all reported goals were matching with important events that are part of the so-called cultural life script. The cultural life script represents a scheme of the most important events that a prototypical person within a culture is expected to happen during his or her ordinary life course. Our finding suggests that our cultural expectations of what a person will experience and what a person actually wants to experience in the lifetime are matching well. There were a few differences between the two groups: In the prospective group, people mentioned more goals related to creating art and fewer to retirement, and they expected college to happen earlier than in the retrospective group. Overall, the goals in the retrospective group relied more on cultural life script, confirming our hypothesis that our knowledge of cultural expectations seems more relevant when think retrospectively about our future (= construed in more higher level terms).

Changing perspective affected also when we expect our goals will happen. In both groups, people dated their future goals to happen before age 35 and very few in later life. We found that retrospectively reported goals were distributed more widely across the life span, whereas almost 80% of all reported future goals reported prospectively were expected in young adulthood before age 30. On average, prospectively reported goals were expected to occur approximately seven years into the future. Even though participants in both groups were asked for goals expected across the whole lifetime, only participants in the retrospective group were more likely to date their goals across the entire life span (around 10,5 years into the future). This suggests that thinking retrospectively about the future extends the time interval one has in mind.

Third and contrary to our hypothesis, changing the perspective from prospective to retrospective did not change how meaningful we perceived a goal. However, the timing when we expected a goal to happen did change the perceived meaning. In both groups, we found that the goals expected to happen in the near future were similarly high on self-concordance and importance. However, the further the goals were expected to happen in the future, the less important they became in the prospective condition and the more self-concordant in the retrospective condition. One interpretation is that retrospective future thinking might lead individuals to perceive distant future goals as more self-concordance and more important.

Overall, the later goals were expected to happen in the future – in both groups – the more they were rated as difficult, as less likely to occur, and perceived with having lower self-efficacy to obtain the goal.

For future studies, it will be important to replicate the current findings and to examine the boundaries and mechanisms behind the observed effects to tell more about when retrospective future thinking changes what we have in mind and when it does not. Next, it will be interesting to investigate whether and how retrospective future thinking might be a helpful tool. For example, it might be used in counselling and organizational contexts where reflecting on personal goals or work goals is of interest. Retrospective future thinking might allow people to take a step back to see the bigger picture, zooming out rather than focusing on the details. As it represents a perspective that is more distant to the current self but closer to the future self, it might be helpful to get motivated to start saving money for retirement, a goal that is not visible in the present moment.

Conclusion

This study shows that changing the perspective from which we think of the future does affect the qualities of goals. We provide evidence that retrospective future thinking serves as a form of psychological distancing that affects when goals are expected and how they are characterized. This suggests that retrospective future thinking can be used as a tool to narrow and expand our mental horizon.

Do you want to read the full article?

The full article can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103582

The citation for the article is as follows:
Roderer, A., Watson, L.A., & Bohn, A. (2022). Remembering future life goals: Retrospective future thinking affects life goal qualities. Acta Psychologica, 226, 103582. DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103582