The future is bright and predictable: The development of prospective life stories across childhood and adolescence

Developmental Psychology

Volumn 49, Issue 7, 2013, Pages 1232-1241

  Bohn, Annette ^a   Berntsen, Dorthe ^a  

^a AARHUS UNIVERSITY   (Denmark)

Author keywords

Cultural life script; Future past; Life story development; Mental time travel

Indexed keywords

ADOLESCENT; ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT; ARTICLE; CHILD; CHILD DEVELOPMENT; CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY; FEMALE; HUMAN; IMAGINATION; LIFE EVENT; MALE; SELF CONCEPT; VERBAL COMMUNICATION;

ADOLESCENT; ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT; CHILD; CHILD DEVELOPMENT; CULTURE; FEMALE; HUMANS; IMAGINATION; LIFE CHANGE EVENTS; MALE; NARRATION; SELF CONCEPT;

EID: 84882648562     PISSN: 00121649     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1037/a0030212     Document Type: Article

References (61)

1. Ackil, J. K., van Abbema, D. L., & Bauer, P. J. (2003). After the storm: Enduring differences in mother- child recollections of traumatic and nontraumatic events. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 84, 286-309. doi:10.1016/S0022-0965(03)00027-4
2. Addis, D. R., Wong, A. T., & Schacter, D. L. (2007). Remembering the past and imagining the future: Common and distinct neural substrates during event construction and elaboration. Neuropsychologia, 45, 1363- 1377. doi:2048/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2006.10.016
3. Addis, D. R., Wong, A. T., & Schacter, D. L. (2008). Age-related changes in the episodic simulation of future events. Psychological Science, 19, 33-41. doi:10.1111/j.1457-9280.2008.02043.x
4. Atance, C. M. (2008). Future thinking in children. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17, 295-298. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2008 .00593.x
5. Atance, C. M., & Jackson, L. K. (2009). The development and coherence of future-oriented behaviors during the preschool years. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 102, 379-391. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2009 .01.001
6. Atance, C. M., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2005). My future self: Young children's ability to anticipate and explain future states. Cognitive Development, 20, 341-361. doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2005.05.001
7. Berntsen, D., & Bohn, A. (2009). Cultural life scripts and individual life stories. In P. Boyer & J. V. Wertsch (Eds.), Memory in mind and culture (pp. 62-82). Cambridge, England:x Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511626999.005
8. Berntsen, D., & Bohn, A. (2010). Remembering and forecasting: The relation between autobiographical memory and episodic future thinking. Memory & Cognition, 38, 265-278. doi:2048/10.3758/MC. 38.3.265
9. Berntsen, D., & Jacobsen, A. S. (2008). Involuntary (spontaneous) mental time travel into the past and future. Consciousness and Cognition, 17, 1093-1104. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2008.03.001
10. Berntsen, D., & Rubin, D. C. (2004). Cultural life scripts structure recall from autobiographical memory. Memory & Cognition, 32, 427-442. doi:10.3758/BF03195836
11. Bohn, A. (2010a). Generational differences in cultural life scripts and life story memories of younger and older adults. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24, 1324-1345. doi:2048/10.1002/acp.1641
12. Bohn, A. (2010b). Normative ideas of life and autobiographical reasoning in life narratives. In T. Habermas (Ed.), The development of autobiographical reasoning in adolescence and beyond: New directions for child and adolescent development (No. 131, pp. 19-30). doi:10.1002/ cd286
13. Bohn, A., & Berntsen, D. (2008). Life story development in childhood: The development of life story abilities and the acquisition of cultural life scripts from late middle childhood to adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 44, 1135-1147. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.44.4.1135
14. Bohn, A., & Berntsen, D. (2011). The reminiscence bump reconsidered: Children's prospective life stories show a bump in young adulthood. Psychological Science, 22, 197-202. doi:10.1177/0956797610395394
15. Botzung, A., Denkova, E., & Manning, L. (2008). Experiencing past and future personal events: Functional neuroimaging evidence on the neural bases of mental time travel. Brain and Cognition, 66, 202-212. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2007.07.011
16. Buckner, J. P., & Fivush, R. (1998). Gender and self in children's autobiographical narratives. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 12, 407-429. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1099-0720(199808)12:4<407::AID-ACP575=3.0.CO; 2-7
17. Busby, J., & Suddendorf, T. (2005). Recalling yesterday and predicting tomorrow. Cognitive Development, 20, 362-372. doi:10.1016/j.cogdev .2005.05.002
18. Caruso, E. M., Gilbert, D. T., & Wilson, T. D. (2008). A wrinkle in time: Asymmetric valuation of past and future events. Psychological Science, 19, 796-801. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02159.x
19. Cooper, J. M., Vargha-Khadem, F., Gadian, D. G., & Maguire, E. A. (2011). The effect of hippocampal damage in children on recalling the past and imagining new experiences. Neuropsychologia, 49, 1843-1850. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.03.008
20. D'Argembeau, A., & Mathy, A. (2011). Tracking the construction of episodic future thoughts. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 140, 258-271. doi:10.1037/a0022581
21. D'Argembeau, A., Raffard, S., & Van der Linden, M. (2008). Remembering the past and imagining the future in schizophrenia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 117, 247-251. doi:10.1037/0021-843X.117.1 .247
22. D'Argembeau, A., Renaud, O., & Van der Linden, M. (2011). Frequency, characteristics and functions of future-oriented thoughts in daily life. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25, 96-103. doi:10.1002/acp.1647
23. D'Argembeau, A., & Van der Linden, M. (2004). Phenomenal characteristics associated with projecting oneself back into the past and forward into the future: Influence of valence and temporal distance. Consciousness and Cognition, 13, 844-858. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2004.07.007
24. D'Argembeau, A., & Van der Linden, M. (2006). Individual differences in the phenomenology of mental time travel: The effect of vivid visual imagery and emotion regulation strategies. Consciousness and Cognition, 15, 342-350. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2005.09.001
25. Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity, youth, and crisis. New York, NY: Norton.
26. Fivush, R. (2011). The development of autobiographical memory. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 559-582. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.121208 .131702
27. Fivush, R., Habermas, T., Waters, T. E. A., & Zaman, W. (2011). The making of autobiographical memory: Intersections of culture, narratives and identity. International Journal of Psychology, 46, 321-345. doi: 10.1080/00207594.2011.596541
28. Fivush, R., Haden, C., & Adam, S. (1995). Structure and coherence of preschoolers' personal narratives over time: Implications for childhood amnesia. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 60, 32-56. doi: 10.1006/jecp.1995.1030
29. Fivush, R., Hazzard, A., McDermott Sales, J., Sarfati, D., & Brown, T. (2003). Creating coherence out of chaos? Children's narratives of emotionally positive and negative events. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 1-19. doi:10.1002/acp.854
30. Friedman, W. J. (2000). The development of children's knowledge of the times of future events. Child Development, 71, 913-932. doi:10.1111/ 1467-8624.00199
31. Friedman, W. J. (2005). Developmental and cognitive perspectives on humans' sense of the times of past and future events. Learning and Motivation, 36, 145-158. doi:10.1016/j.lmot.2005.02.005
32. Greene, A. L. (1990). Great expectations: Constructions of the life course during adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 19, 289-306. doi:10.1007/BF01537074
33. Habermas, T. (2007). How to tell a life: The development of the cultural concept of biography. Journal of Cognition and Development, 8, 1-31. doi:10.1207/s15327647jcd0801_1
34. Habermas, T., & Bluck, S. (2000). Getting a life: The emergence of the life story in adolescence. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 748 -769. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.126.5.748
35. Habermas, T., & de Silveira, C. (2008). The development of global coherence in life narratives across adolescence: Temporal, causal and thematic aspects. Developmental Psychology, 44, 707-721. doi:10.1037/ 0012-1649.44.3.707
36. Habermas, T., & Paha, C. (2001). The development of coherence in adolescents' life narratives. Narrative Inquiry, 11, 35-54. doi:10.1075/ ni.11.1.02hab
37. Haden, C. A., Haine, R. A., & Fivush, R. (1997). Developing narrative structure in parent- child reminiscing across the preschool years. Developmental Psychology, 33, 295-307. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.33.2.295
38. Hassabis, D., Kumaran, D., Vann, S. D., & Maguire, E. A. (2007). Patients with hippocampal amnesia cannot imagine new experiences. PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104, 1726-1731. doi:10.1073/pnas.0610561104
39. Hayne, H., Gross, J., McNamee, S., Fitzgibbon, O., & Tustin, K. (2011). Episodic memory and episodic foresight in 3- and 5-year-old children. Cognitive Development, 26, 343-355. doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2011.09 .006
40. Heckhausen, J. (1997). Developmental regulation across adulthood: Primary and secondary control of age-related challenges. Developmental Psychology, 33, 176-187. doi:2048/10.1037/0012-1649.33.1.176
41. Hudson, J. A., Fivush, R., & Kuebli, J. (1992). Scripts and episodes: The development of event memory. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 6, 483- 505. doi:10.1002/acp.2350060604
42. Hudson, J., & Nelson, K. (1986). Repeated encounters of a similar kind: Effects of familiarity on children's autobiographic memory. Cognitive Development, 1, 253-271. doi:10.1016/S0885-2014(86)80004-1
43. Liberman, N., Sagristano, M. D., & Trope, Y. (2002). The effect of temporal distance on level of mental construal. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 523-534. doi:2048/10.1016/S0022- 1031(02)00535-8
44. Markus, H., & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41, 954-969. doi:2048/10.1037/0003-066X.41.9.954
45. McAdams, D. P. (2001). The psychology of life stories. Review of General Psychology, 5, 100-122. doi:2048/10.1037/1089-2680.5.2.100
46. Nelson, K., & Fivush, R. (2004). The emergence of autobiographical memory: A social cultural developmental theory. Psychological Review, 111, 486-511. doi:2048/10.1037/0033-295X.111.2.486
47. Nelson, K., & Gruendel, J. (1981). Generalised event representations: Basic building blocks of cognitive development. In A. Brown & M. Lamb (Eds.), Advances in development (pp. 131-158). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
48. Newby-Clark, I. R., & Ross, M. (2003). Conceiving the past and future. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 807-818. doi:10.1177/ 0146167203029007001
49. Nurmi, J.-E. (1991). How do adolescents see their future? A review of the development of future orientation and planning. Developmental Review, 11, 1-59. doi:10.1016/0273-2297(91)90002-6
50. Okuda, J., Fujii, T., Ohtake, H., Tsukiura, T., Tanji, K., Zuzuki, K., . . . Yamadori, A. (2003). Thinking of the future and the past. The roles of the frontal pole and the medial temporal lobes. NeuroImage, 19, 1369- 1380. doi:10.1016/S1053-8119(03)00179-4
51. Pasupathi, M., & McLean, K. C. (2010). Introduction. In K. C. McLean & M. Pasupathi (Eds.), Narrative development in adolescence: Creating the storied self (pp. xix-xxxiii). New York, NY: Springer Science
52. Peterson, C., & McCabe, A. (1983). Developmental psycholinguistics: Three ways of looking at a child's narrative. New York, NY: Plenum Press.
53. Quon, E., & Atance, C. M. (2010). A comparison of preschoolers' memory, knowledge, and anticipation of events. Journal of Cognition and Development, 11, 37-60. doi:10.1080/15248370903453576
54. Rubin, D. C., & Berntsen, D. (2003). Life scripts help to maintain memories of highly positive, but not highly negative, events. Memory & Cognition, 31, 1-14. doi:10.3758/BF03196077
55. Rubin, D. C., Berntsen, D., & Hutson, M. (2009). The normative and the personal life: Individual differences in life scripts and life story events among USA and Danish undergraduates. Memory, 17, 54-68. doi: 10.1080/09658210802541442
56. Schacter, D. L., & Addis, D. R. (2007). On the constructive episodic simulation of past and future events. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30, 331-332. doi:10.1017/S0140525X07002178
57. Suddendorf, T. (2010). Linking yesterday and tomorrow: Preschoolers' ability to report temporally displaced events. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 28, 491-498. doi:10.1348/026151009X479169
58. Szpunar, K. K., Watson, J. M., & McDermott, K. B. (2007). Neural substrates of envisioning the future. PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104, 642-647. doi:10.1073/pnas.0610082104
59. Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2003). Temporal construal. Psychological Review, 110, 403-421. doi:2048/10.1037/0033-295X.110.3.403
60. Tulving, E. (2002). Episodic memory: From mind to brain. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 1-25. doi:2048/10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901 .135114
61. Williams, J. M. G., Ellis, N. C., Tyers, C., Healy, H., Gillian, R., & MacLeod, K. A. (1996). The specificity of autobiographical memory and imageability of the future. Memory & Cognition, 24, 116-125. doi: 10.3758/BF03197278