For example, could temperamental traits influence positive or negative feelings about future?
http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v8/n9/abs/nrn2213.html
Is there a specific aspect of imagining the future you are interested in? There is a wealth of brain imaging research trying to find the underlying neural mechanisms involved.
I am certain that emotions and personality traits will affect the ability to imagine one's future self, as would beliefs in self-efficacy and basic self-esteem. There is a wealth of literature on behavior change, which includes lots of theory about how people try to imagine a future better self in different ways, which may or may not lead to an actual behavior change. hence, all imaginings of future selves are not equal.
I recommend reading this brief overview http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-plan-for-your-future-self/, which lists these good references:
Putting Time in Perspective: A Valid, Reliable Individual-Differences Metric. P. G. Zimbardo and J. N. Boyd in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 77, pages 1271–1288; 1999.
Don't Stop Thinking about Tomorrow: Individual Differences in Future Self-Continuity Account for Saving. H. Ersner-Hershfield et al. in Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 4, No. 4,pages 280–286; June 2009.
Does Personal Intelligence Exist? Evidence from a New Ability-Based Measure. J. D. Mayer, A. T. Panter and D. R. Caruso in Journal of Personality Assessment, Vol. 94, No. 2, pages 124–140; 2012.
Refining the Theory of Basic Individual Values. S. H. Schwartz et al. in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 103, No. 4, pages 663–688; October 2012.
Dear Catherine, I'm glad I found a scientist so well informed. I will read the article you posted with attention. But, what do you mean with "better future self"? Maybe people tend to use some defence mechanism when imagine future?
Thanks for your precious feedback.
Dear Amelia,
I was referring to the type of imagined future self among people trying to improve something (quitting smoking, losing weight, learning to deal with anger, etc.). That is what I am most familiar with, although it is not my field. I would encourage you to consider what this literature has to say, since they have general findings on variables important to imagining a future self - even potentially a negative one. You might also like to look into predictors of job- and academic performance, which will overlap to an extent with the idea of imagining a future self.
I wish you all the best! I am curious what your exact research question is.
I'm planning a brief research to answer a question. I have to prepare a contribution for a congress. The theme is the impact of the rapid changes of our society on young adults.
In Italy we have a very very high level of unemployment (14%), expecially among youngs, even if graduated. I'm collecting data concerning temperamental traits, mood states and the "position about future" (avoidance, impotence, vigilance etc...). The last is a questionnaire that I developed by myself.
Until now I found few similar research. This is good for the originality, but a limit for the theoretical frameworks.
Talking about future... The research would be more important if we could have a control group of young adults that don't live the same condition... like in Germany... What do you think?
Wonderful! Thank you very much Chaoyun.
They are really excellent works that I definitely will cite in the discussion of the results.
Thanks for the ideas.
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