Episodic future thoughts during the first Covid-19 pandemic lockdown

Journal title PSICOLOGIA DELLA SALUTE
Author/s Igor Sotgiu, Angelo Compare, Nicola Palena, Ilaria Ghidini, Giulia Fusi, Andrea Greco
Publishing Year 2023 Issue 2023/2 Language Italian
Pages 17 P. 135-151 File size 251 KB
DOI 10.3280/PDS2023-002009
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

The present study investigated episodic future thoughts during the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic. Two groups of university students took part in the study: the first group (n = 29) consisted of individuals who had experienced one or more traumatic experiences as-sociated with the pandemic; the second group (n = 56) included individuals without any such trauma. The study was conducted via an online self-report questionnaire encompassing two sections: the first section investigated exposure to and characteristics of traumatic events caused by the pandemic emergency; on the other hand, in the second section, participants were asked to recount a personal episode relating to a future post-lockdown scenario. The results showed that the narratives of future episodes provided by the two groups had substantial simi-larities. These included predictions about the end of the lockdown period, narrative length, core themes, emotional language, and the level of narrative coherence. In the conclusions, the authors interpret their results by referring to both research that is now available on psychologi-cal reactions to the pandemic and the theoretical and empirical literature on episodic future thinking.

Keywords: Covid-19, personal narratives, pandemic, episodic future thinking, traumatic events.

  1. Aknin L. B., De Neve J. E., Dunn E. W., Fancourt D. E., Goldberg E., Helliwell J. F., Jones S. P., Karam E., Layard R., Lyubomirsky S., Rzepa A., Saxena S., Thornton E. M., VanderWeele T. J., Whillans A. V., Zaki J., Karadag O. & Ben Amor Y. (2022). Mental health during the first year of the covid-19 pandemic: A review and recommendations for moving forward. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 17(4), 915-936. DOI: 10.1177/17456916211029964.
  2. American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 5th Edition. Washington DC: Author.
  3. Arora T., Grey I., Östlundh L., Lam K. B. H., Omar O. M. & Arnone D. (2022). The prevalence of psychological consequences of COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies. Journal of Health Psychology, 27(4), 805-824. DOI: 10.1177/135910532096663
  4. Atance C. M. & O’Neill D. K. (2001). Episodic future thinking. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5(12), 533-539.
  5. Attema A. E., L’Haridon O., Raude J., Seror V. & The Coconel Group (2021). Beliefs and risk perceptions about COVID-19: Evidence from two successive French representative surveys during lockdown. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 619145.
  6. Barsics C., Van der Linden M. & D’Argembeau A. (2016). Frequency, characteristics, and perceived functions of emotional future thinking in daily life. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 69(2), 217-233.  DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2015.105156
  7. Bland R. A., Roiser J. P., Mehta M. A., Sahakian B. J., Robbins T. W. & Elliott R. (2022). The impact of COVID-19 social isolation on aspects of emotional and social cognition. Cognition and Emotion, 36(1), 49-58. DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2021.189259
  8. Boyer P. (2008). Evolutionary economics of mental time travel? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(6), 219-224.
  9. Bromberg U., Lobatcheva M. & Peters J. (2017). Episodic future thinking reduces temporal discounting in healthy adolescents. PloS ONE, 12(11), e0188079.
  10. Brown G. P., Macleod A. K., Tata P. & Goddard L. (2002). Worry and the simulation of future outcomes. Anxiety, Stress, and Coping, 15, 1-17. DOI: 10.1080/1061580029000725
  11. Chaumon M., Rioux P. A., Herbst S. K., Spiousas I., Kübel S. L., Gallego Hiroyasu E. M., Runyun Ş. L., Micillo L., Thanopoulos V. … & van Wassenhove V. (2022). The Blursday database as a resource to study subjective temporalities during COVID-19. Nature Human Behaviour, 6, 1587-1599.
  12. Cravo A. M., de Azevedo G. B., Moraes Bilacchi Azarias C., Barne L. C., Bueno F. D., de Camargo R. Y., Morita V. C., Sirius E. V. P., Recio R. S., Silvestrin M. & de Azevedo Neto R. M. (2022). Time experience during social distancing: A longitudinal study during the first months of COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. Science Advances, 8(15), eabj7205.
  13. Daniel T. O., Stanton C. M. & Epstein L. H. (2013). The future is now: Reducing impulsivity and energy intake using episodic future thinking. Psychological Science, 24(11), 2339-2342.
  14. Dassen F. C. M., Jansen A., Nederkoorn C. & Houben K. (2016). Focus on the future: Episodic future thinking reduces discount rate and snacking. Appetite, 96(1), 327-332.
  15. 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(1), 96-103.
  16. Dalmaso M., Castelli L. & Galfano G. (2021). Increased gaze cueing of attention during COVID-19 lockdown. iScience. 24(11), 103283.
  17. Gray M. J., Litz B. T., Hsu J. L. & Lombardo T. W. (2004). Psychometric properties of the Life Events Checklist. Assessment, 11(4), 330-341.  DOI: 10.1177/107319110426995
  18. Habermas, T. (2019). Emotion and narrative: Perspectives in autobiographical storytelling. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  19. Hollis-Hansen K., Seidman J., O’Donnell S. & Epstein L. H. (2019). Episodic future thinking and grocery shopping online. Appetite, 133(1), 1-9.
  20. Ingram J., Hand C. J. & Maciejewski G. (2021). Social isolation during COVID-19 lockdown impairs cognitive function. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 35(4), 935-947.
  21. Istat e ISS (2020). Impatto dell’epidemia Covid-19 sulla mortalità totale della popolazione residente. Primo trimestre 2020. Documento disponibile al sito internet: https://www. istat.it/it/files/2020/05/Rapporto_Istat_ISS.pdf
  22. Jia L-X., Liu Z., Cui J-F., Ding Q-Y., Ye J-Y., Liu L-L., Xu H. & Wang Y. (2020). Future thinking is related to lower delay discounting than recent thinking, regardless of the magnitude of the reward, in individuals with schizotypy. Australian Psychologist, 55(5), 572-581.
  23. Kubany E. S., Leisen M. B., Kaplan A. S., Watson S. B., Haynes S. N., Owens J. A. & Burns K. (2000). Development and preliminary validation of a brief broad-spectrum measure of trauma exposure: The Traumatic Life Events Questionnaire. Psychological Assessment, 12(2), 210-224.  DOI: 10.1037/1040-3590.12.2.21
  24. Kunzler A. M., Röthke N., Günthner L., Stoffers-Winterling J., Tüscher O., Coenen M., Rehfuess E., Schwarzer G., Binder H., Schmucker C., Meerpohl J. J. & Lieb K. (2021). Mental burden and its risk and protective factors during the early phase of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: Systematic review and meta-analyses. Globalization and Health, 17(34).
  25. Leon C. S., Bonilla M., Benítez F. A. U., Brusco L. I., Wang J. & Forcato C. (2022). Impairment of aversive episodic memories during Covid-19 pandemic: The impact of emotional context on memory processes. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 187: 107575.
  26. Li Y., Luan S., Li Y. And Hertwig R. (2021). Changing emotions in the COVID-19 pandemic: A four-wave longitudinal study in the United States and China. Social Science & Medicine, 285, 114222.
  27. Luo M., Guo L., Yu M., Jiang W. & Wang H. (2020). The psychological and mental impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on medical staff and general public – A systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychiatry Research, 291, 113190.
  28. Mariani R., Monaco S. & Di Trani M. (2021). Putting into words the Covid-19 lockdown experience: Psychological symptoms and the referential process. Healthcare, 9(9), 1100.
  29. Mariën S., Poels K. & Vandebosch H. (2022). Think positive, be positive: Expressive writing changes young people’s emotional reactions towards the COVID-19 Pandemic. Frontiers in Education, 6, 755896.
  30. McAdams D. P. (2008). Personal narratives and the life story. In John O. P., Robins R. W. & Pervin L. A., eds., Handbook of personality: Theory and research (3rd ed.) (pp. 242-262). New York: Guilford Press.
  31. McCue R., McCormack T., McElnay J., Alto A. & Feeney A. (2019). The future and me: Imagining the future and the future self in adolescent decision making. Cognitive Development, 50, 142-156.
  32. Ogden R. S. (2020). The passage of time during the UK Covid-19 lockdown. PloS ONE, 15(7), e0235871.
  33. Patel H. & Amlung M. (2020). Acute and extended exposure to episodic future thinking in a treatment seeking addiction sample: A pilot study. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 116, 108046.
  34. Pennebaker J. W. & Smyth J. M. (2016), Opening up by writing it down: How expressive writing improves health and esases emotional pain. New York: Guilford Press.
  35. Prati G. e Mancini A. D. (2021). The psychological impact of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns: A review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies and natural experiments. Psychological Medicine, 51(2), 201-211. DOI: 10.1017/S003329172100001
  36. Procaccia R., Segre G., Tamanza G. & Manzoni G. M. (2021). Benefits of expressive writing on healthcare workers’ psychological adjustment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 624176.
  37. Reese E., Haden C. A., Baker-Ward L., Bauer P., Fivush R. & Ornstein P. A. (2011). Coherence of personal narratives across the lifespan: a multidimensional model and coding method. Journal of Cognition and Development, 12, 424-462. DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2011.58785
  38. Rioux P., Chaumon M., Demers A., Fitzback-Fortin H., Kübel S. L., Lebrun C., Mendoza-Duran E., Micillo L., Racine C., Thibault N., van Wassenhove V. & Grondin S. (2022). Psychological time during the COVID-19 lockdown: Canadian data, Timing & Time Perception, 10(4), 326-343.
  39. Salari N., Hosseinian-Far A., Jalali R., Vaisi-Raygani A., Rasoulpoor S., Mohammadi M., Rasoulpoor S. & Khaledi-Paveh B. (2020). Prevalence of stress, anxiety, depression among the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Globalization and Health, 16(57).
  40. Savadori L. e Lauriola M. (2022). Risk perceptions and COVID-19 protective behaviors: A two-wave longitudinal study of epidemic and post-epidemic periods. Social Science & Medicine, 301, 114949.
  41. Schacter D. L., Addis D. R. & Buckner, R. L. (2007). Remembering the past to imagine the future: The prospective brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 8, 657-661.
  42. Schacter D. L., Benoit R. G. & Szpunar K. K. (2017). Episodic future thinking: Mechanisms and functions. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 17, 41-50.
  43. Schneider C. R., Dryhurst S., Kerr J., Freeman A. L. J., Recchia G., Spiegelhalter D. & Van der Linden S. (2021). COVID-19 risk perception: A longitudinal analysis of its predictors and associations with health protective behaviours in the United Kingdom. Journal of Risk Research, 24(3-4), 294-313. DOI: 10.1080/13669877.2021.189063
  44. Shrikanth S., Szpunar P. M. & Szpunar K. K. (2018). Staying positive in a dystopian future: A novel dissociation between personal and collective cognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 147(8), 1200-1210.
  45. Snider S. E., LaConte S. M. & Bickel W. K. (2016). Episodic future thinking: Expansion of the temporal window in individuals with alcohol dependence. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 40(7), 1558-1566.
  46. Somma F., Bartolomeo P., Vallone F., Argiuolo A., Cerrato A., Miglino O., Mandolesi L., Zurlo M. C. & Gigliotta O. (2021). Further to the left: Stress-induced increase of spatial pseudoneglect during the COVID-19 lockdown. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 573846.
  47. Sotgiu I. (2021). The psychology of autobiographical memory: History, theory, research. Palgrave Macmillan.
  48. Spreng R. N., Mar R. A. & Kim A. S. N. (2009). The common neural basis of autobiographical memory, prospection, navigation, theory of mind, and the default mode: A quantitative meta-analysis. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 21(3), 489-510.
  49. Suddendorf T. & Corballis M. C. (1997). Mental time travel and the evolution of the human mind. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, 123(2), 133-167.
  50. Suddendorf T. & Corballis M. C. (2007). The evolution of foresight: What is mental time travel, and is it unique to humans? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30, 299-313. DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X0700197
  51. Sze Y. Y., Stein J. S., Bickel W. K., Paluch R. A. & Epstein L. H. (2017). Bleak present, bright future: Online episodic future thinking, scarcity, delay discounting, and food demand. Clinical Psychological Science, 5(4), 683-697. DOI: 10.1177/216770261769651
  52. Szpunar K. K. (2010). Episodic future thought: An emerging concept. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(2), 142-162. DOI: 10.1177/174569161036235
  53. Szpunar K. K., Spreng R. N. & Schacter D. L. (2014). A taxonomy of prospection: Introducing an organizational framework for future-oriented cognition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(52), 18414-18421.
  54. Torales J., O’Higgins M., Castaldelli-Maia J. M. & Ventriglio A. (2020). The outbreak of COVID-19 coronavirus and its impact on global mental health. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 66(4), 317-320. DOI: 10.1177/002076402091521
  55. Winter D. A., Brunet A., Rivest-Beauregard M., Hammoud R. & Cipolletta S. (2023) Construing worst experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA: A thematic analysis. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 36(1), 1-21. DOI: 10.1080/10720537.2021.2012544

Igor Sotgiu, Angelo Compare, Nicola Palena, Ilaria Ghidini, Giulia Fusi, Andrea Greco, Pensieri futuri episodici durante il primo lockdown della pandemia da Covid-19: uno studio esplorativo in "PSICOLOGIA DELLA SALUTE" 2/2023, pp 135-151, DOI: 10.3280/PDS2023-002009