Mental journey to the future and memory for future thoughts during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown

Abstract

This study analyzes the production and recall of future thoughts during the COVID-19 lockdown. Participants were free to produce future thoughts (Experiment 1) or received cues to promote production (Experiment 2), and then were asked to recall as many of the future thoughts produced as possible. The Valence (positive vs. negative) and the Event Type (personal vs. collective) thoughts were considered. In production and recall, there were no global differences between the positive and negative thoughts in Experiment 1, whereas in Experiment 2 the cues led to more positive than negative ones. More importantly, a Valence × Event Type interaction was observed in both experiments for production and recall data, indicating a positivity bias for personal and a negativity bias for collective future thinking. These findings contribute to a better understanding of mental time travel in situations as complex as the COVID-19 pandemic.