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ERIC Number: EJ1280914
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021
Pages: 7
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0888-4080
EISSN: N/A
Mental Time Travel into the Episodic Future, Episodic Past, and Episodic Counterfactual Past in Everyday Life
Branch, Jared G.; Zickar, Michael J.
Applied Cognitive Psychology, v35 n1 p293-299 Jan-Feb 2021
To date, studies exploring the relationship of counterfactual thoughts with episodic memories and episodic future thoughts have focused mainly on voluntary mental time travel. We explore mental time travel in everyday life and find that episodic counterfactual thinking occurs to a much lesser extent than thinking about the past or the future (12%, 22%, and 54%, respectively), is used mainly for mood regulation purposes, and the temporal distribution decreases as a function of time. We observe similarities in phenomenological detail: memories and counterfactual thoughts sharing similar ratings of sensory detail, memories and future thoughts sharing similar ratings of positivity, and counterfactual and future thoughts sharing similar ratings of mental time travel. We discuss the implications of episodic counterfactual thinking in everyday life.
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A