Graduation Year

2024

Date of Submission

4-2024

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Psychology

Reader 1

Sharda Umanath

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© 2024 Claire R Hou

Abstract

Personal and collective future thought refer to the way people conceptualize and think about their own personal futures, and the futures of groups they are affiliated with, such as one’s nation or cultural community, respectively. Previous research has indicated that there are key cultural differences in how American and Chinese individuals think about their personal future and the collective future of their nation. The present study investigated the impact of cultural constructs of self-construal, namely individualism/independence and collectivism/interdependence, on personal and collective future thought. We attempted to experimentally manipulate participants’ self-construals with a priming task, and participants were asked to generate events they anticipated happening in their personal and collective (national) futures at various time points. Results revealed a personal positivity bias and collective negativity bias in future thinking, replicating previous findings. Findings also replicated work demonstrating that the valence of future thought tended to increase with temporal distance. Additionally, higher levels of independent self-construals were associated with greater positivity in future thinking in both the personal and collective domains, indicating that self-construal has some relationship with the valence of future thought. However, the self-construal priming task was ineffective, suggesting a need for further exploration. Overall, study highlights the complex interplay between cultural constructs and future thought processes, emphasizing the importance of cross-cultural investigations into future thinking.

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