Previous studies suggest a link between future thinking and prosocial behaviors. However, this association is not fully understood at state and trait level. The present study tested whether a brief future thinking induction promoted helping behavior in an unrelated task. In addition, the relation between mental time travel and prosocial behaviors in daily life was tested with questionnaire data. Forty-eight participants filled in questionnaires and were asked to think about the future for one minute or to name animals for one minute (control condition) before playing the Zurich Prosocial Game (a measure of helping behavior). Results revealed that participants in the future thinking condition helped significantly more than participants in the control condition. Moreover, questionnaire data showed that dispositional and positive orientation toward the future and the past was significantly associated with self-reported prosocial behaviors. The present findings suggest that thinking about the future in general has positive transfer effects on subsequent prosocial behavior and that people who think more about the past or future in a positive way engage more in prosocial behavior.Anecdotal reports have linked future thinking to increase in prosocial behavior or conflict resolution, even in international conflicts. One example is the Camp David Accords stating the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt in 1978. After several days of negotiations without an agreement at Camp David, the American president Jimmy Carter introduced grandchildren to the discussion. This was a turning point in the negotiation. Later that day, Begin, Sadat and Carter signed the Camp David Accord. It is possible that evoking grandchildren shifted the focus from the present to the future, thereby increasing the willingness for compromise and conflict resolution.Evolutionary considerations also argue that mental time travel may guide decision-making and lead to cooperative behaviors by bypassing opportunistic motivation, impulsive choices, and the effects of time discounting. In particular, it has been suggested that episodic future thinking [the ability to imagine oneself vividly in a specific future event] might foster prosocial intentions as well as behaviors. Several studies have provided evidence establishing the link between episodic future thinking and prosocial intentions.
If this is true, it suggests that climate news reporting should usually mention plausible future scenarios such as adverse effects of climate change on species extinction and on the next and future generations.
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