Looking Forward and Looking Back

Abstract

Past events are perceived to be temporally more distant when they are unlikely rather than likely to reoccur in the future. This can be because (a) future events that are unlikely to occur are perceived to be temporally remote and (b) these feelings of remoteness can generalize and influence subjective distance judgments of the events’ occurrences in the past. Six studies confirmed this effect and provided insights into the processes that underlie it. Alternative interpretations and implications of the current findings are discussed.

Keywords

subjective temporal distance memory for time reoccurrence likelihood past-future symmetry

The knowledge and experience we have gleaned from the past can obviously influence our expectations for the future (Szpunar & McDermott, 2009). But can our perceptions of the future influence our perceptions of the past? If so, what processes underlie this influence? In the current research, we attempt to answer these questions.

Many factors can influence people’s perceptions of an event’s recency, including its vividness and the emotions associated with it (Brown, Rips, & Shevell, 1985; Hinrichs, 1970; Van Boven, Kane, McGraw, & Dale, 2010). Most of these factors, however, pertain to attributes of the event itself. In the present research, we consider a quite different determinant of this perception, namely, the likelihood that the event will occur again. Specifically, we hypothesize that people perceive a past event to have occurred less recently if its likelihood of reoccurring is low rather than high. For example, a past vacation in Bali seems more remote if one will never go there again than if one is likely to return next year.

This hypothesis is based on two assumptions. First, people believe that a future event is more imminent if its likelihood of occurring is high than if it is low (Rachlin, Raineri, & Cross, 1991; Wakslak, 2012). Second, we propose that people’s perceptions of when a past event will reoccur have a positive influence on their judgments of when it occurred in the past. Note that the latter assumption suggests that estimates of an event’s future temporal distance and estimates of its past temporal distance are symmetric. That is, people will estimate a past event to have occurred less recently if they expect its occurrence in the future to be remote than if they expect it to be imminent.

In the remainder of this article, we first review evidence bearing on these assumptions and note several alternative explanations of the effects we postulate. We argue that the process we postulate could occur independently of these factors. We then report six studies that support our propositions.

Theoretical Background

Definition of “Reoccurrence”

The definition of an event’s reoccurrence is somewhat ambiguous. For one thing, events are composed of many features, some of which might reoccur and others of which might not. For example, a man who has had a vacation in Bali with his family might visit again by himself and might go to some of the same places but see different ones as well. Thus, the perception of an event’s “reoccurrence” may be largely in the eye of the beholder and may depend on the specificity with which the event is construed and on the features of the event one happens to think about. In this article, we define reoccurrence in terms of the extent to which the past and future events share the same features, and expect that its effect and the underlying mechanisms are mostly likely to occur when the considered features of the past and future events are similar rather than dissimilar.

In most of our studies, for example, participants recalled a past event (e.g., a vacation) that had occurred at a particular place and then estimated the future likelihood of a same event (a future vacation) happening at the same place. This procedure made the location of the events salient and led participants to perceive that the past and future events share a critical feature. It is therefore reasonable to assume that participants considered the future event to be a reoccurrence of the past one.

Past and Future Temporal Distance

Our conceptualization was based in part on construal level theory (Trope & Liberman, 2010). According to this theory, dimensions of psychological distance (spatial, temporal, social and probabilistic) are related, and estimates of distance along one (e.g., probabilistic) dimension can influence judgments along another (e.g., temporal) dimension (Todorov, Goren, & Trope, 2007; Wakslak, 2012; but see Boroditsky, 2000; Zhang & Wang, 2009, for qualifications of this effect). Thus, people infer that future events with low probabilities of occurrence are temporally remote (Rachlin et al., 1991; Wakslak, 2012). Without making additional assumptions, however, construal level theory cannot predict the effect of an event’s temporal distance in the future on judgments of its temporal distance in the past.

To account for the phenomenon we hypothesize, we further assume that estimates of the time a past event is to reoccur in the future and perceptions of the time it occurred in the past are directionally symmetric. That is, people infer that an event occurred less recently if they do not expect it to reoccur for some time than if they believe that its reoccurrence is imminent. There are undoubtedly asymmetries in the magnitude of these perceptions. For example, future events might feel subjectively closer to the present than do equidistant past events (Caruso, Van Boven, Chin, & Ward, 2013). However, directional symmetry may nonetheless exist (cf. Addis, Wong, & Schacter, 2007; Szpunar & McDermott, 2009; Van Boven, Kane, & McGraw, 2009). That is, the greater the distance of an event’s reoccurrence in the future, the greater its distance in the past.

This symmetry could occur for several reasons. For example, the correlation of past and future temporal distance might be the result of a third variable that has similar effects on both. For example, emotional intensity decreases the perceived temporal distance of an event regardless of whether the event is in the past or the future (Van Boven et al., 2010). People judge a past personal event to be temporally closer if it has desirable implications for self-concept than if it has undesirable implications (Ross & Wilson, 2002). Correspondingly, people feel that an anticipated future success is temporally closer than an anticipated failure (Peetz, Wilson, & Strahan, 2009).

Even if future and past temporal distances are not related via a third causal variable, people may use their estimates of the time an event is likely to reoccur as a basis for reconstructing their memory of when it occurred previously. People’s estimates of the time a past event occurred are often based on their subjective feelings rather than on objective criteria. There is abundant evidence that people use the subjective feelings they happen to be experiencing as a basis for their judgments (Schwarz, 2004; Schwarz & Clore, 1983, 2007). Moreover, these feelings may not only be restricted to affects or emotions but can also pertain to other metacognitive feelings such as assertiveness (Stepper & Strack, 1993) and difficulty (Schwarz, 2004). Feelings of remoteness could have similar effects. If people in the course of contemplating the reoccurrence of an event feel that the event will not occur for some time, these feelings of remoteness from the present might generalize to estimates of the time the event occurred in the past, leading them to judge the past occurrence as temporally distant. The symmetric effects of future temporal distance estimates on past temporal distance judgments could be primarily a result of this feeling generalization.

However, other factors could also come into play, including the memory vividness of the past event, the effects of behavioral mind-sets on judgments, and judgment anchoring. We detail these alternatives in the following text.

Memory Vividness

Because distant events elicit less vivid images than recent ones, people often infer an event’s temporal distance based on its memory vividness, judging it to be more distant if the images it elicits are less vivid (Brown et al., 1985; Hinrichs, 1970). Therefore, temporal distance of past and future events may be associated through the vividness of the images people generate for the target event. That is, people may form a less vivid image of a future event when they perceive its likelihood of occurring to be low (Wakslak, Trope, Liberman, & Alony, 2006; also see Carroll, 1978). If these images of the event are salient when people are recalling the event’s occurrence in the past, they are likely to influence the perceived distance of the past event by affecting its memory vividness.

Behavioral Mind-Sets

Behavior-related concepts that people use in the pursuit of goals in one situation can become accessible in memory, increasing the likelihood that the concepts are applied when making decisions in later, unrelated situations (Wyer & Xu, 2010; Wyer, Xu, & Shen, 2012; Xu & Wyer, 2008). (For example, thinking about statements with which one disagrees can induce a “counterarguing” mind-set that decreases the effectiveness of an advertisement that one considers in a later situation; Wyer & Xu, 2010.) This tendency might account for the phenomenon we propose. As we noted earlier, estimates of a stimulus’s psychological distance along one dimension can influence estimates of its distance along another dimension (Trope & Liberman, 2010; Wakslak, 2012). Thus, perceptions of the likelihood that a target event occurs in the future influence perceptions of its future temporal distance and the processes involved in making these judgments could induce a mind-set that influences judgments of psychological distance more generally, affecting judgments of past temporal distance. To this extent, a mind-set account would imply that an event’s likelihood of reoccurring could influence judgments of not only the time that the target event occurred but also the time that other, unrelated events occurred as well (Wyer & Xu, 2010; Xu & Wyer, 2008).

Anchoring of Judgment

Thinking about a temporally near or distant future event could lead people to use their judgments of the event’s distance in the future as an anchor in estimating its temporal distance in the past. That is, people are likely to assign a greater value to a past event’s distance if they are first induced to consider the event’s future distance to be far rather than near. This could be either because that people make insufficient adjustments relative to the anchor value in their judgments (Epley & Gilovich, 2001; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974), or because that anchor-consistent knowledge and concepts become activated, which influences people’s judgments in either a deliberate or heuristic manner (Strack & Mussweiler, 1997; Wegener, Petty, Blankenship, & Detweiler-Bedell, 2010).

This explanation therefore assumes that priming a future event’s distance as short or long leads later judgments of past distance to be assimilated to this anchor. Like the behavioral mind-set account, however, this account would also imply that prior judgments of an event’s future distance can influence subsequent judgments of past distance for both the same event as well as unrelated events (Adaval & Wyer, 2011; Critcher & Gilovich, 2008; Nunes & Boatwright, 2004; Oppenheimer, LeBoeuf, & Brewer, 2008; Schwarz & Wyer, 1985).

Therefore, the conceptualizations of both the behavioral mind-set and the anchoring effect differ from the mechanism we propose in that generalization of feelings of remoteness is not likely to occur when the future and past events are unrelated. Global subjective feelings that are activated in one situation can somehow influence judgments of unrelated stimuli (Schwarz & Clore, 1983, 2007). However, this influence is not likely when individuals are conscious of the true source of these feelings (e.g., Ottati & Isbell, 1996). In the situations we considered, people were aware of the specific event to which their feelings of remoteness pertained, and it seemed unlikely that they would attribute these feelings to an unrelated event (e.g., feelings that a future school reunion is remote are not likely to influence the subjective temporal distance of a past vacation). As our results indicate, the hypothesized effect occurs only when the future event is a reoccurrence of the past but not when the two events are unrelated.

The Current Research

The present research investigates the effects of the likelihood that a past event will reoccur in the future on perceptions of the time it occurred in the past. To reiterate, we assume that (a) individuals judge an event’s future reoccurrence to be temporally more distant if it is unlikely than if it is likely, and (b) perceptions of an event’s temporal distance in the future have a positive effect on estimates of the time the event occurred in the past. Based on these assumptions, we predict that individuals will judge a past event to be temporally more distant if they perceive its likelihood of reoccurring to be low than if they perceive it to be high.

Six studies confirmed this hypothesis and circumscribed the factors that might underlie its validity. Study 1 confirmed the proposed relationship between an event’s likelihood of reoccurring in the future and people’s inferences of when it occurred in the past. Studies 2 and 3 confirmed the causal effect of perceptions of an event’s likelihood of reoccurring on estimates of the time it occurred in the past by experimentally manipulating people’s perceptions of the event’s likelihood of reoccurring. These studies also ruled out the effect of vividness as a determinant of distance estimates. Study 4 provided evidence that the effects of future likelihood on estimates of the time a past event occurred were specific to the event to which these likelihood estimates pertained and did not affect the perceived temporal distance of other, unrelated past events. Results of Study 4 therefore called into question interpretations of our findings in terms of a behavioral mind-set or an anchoring effect.

Studies 5 and 6 provided evidence of the process we hypothesize. Study 5 showed that people’s estimates of the time an event would reoccur in the future mediated the effect of its reoccurrence likelihood on its subjective temporal distance in the past. Study 6 further tested our proposition by directly manipulating the perceived temporal distance of an event’s reoccurrence. When an event reoccurs at fixed time intervals (e.g., the Olympic Games or Presidential Elections), the time that has actually passed since its previous occurrence and the time remaining until its future reoccurrence are negatively related. Nevertheless, Study 6 showed that people judged a past event to be subjectively more distant when its reoccurrence in the future was perceived to be remote than imminent even when the event reoccurs at fixed time intervals.

Study 1

Study 1, a correlational study, provided preliminary evidence of the relationship between estimates of the likelihood that a past event will reoccur and perceptions of when it occurred in the past.

Method

Two hundred two participants were recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (M_age = 29.85, SD = 9.49; 67% male). We used a relatively big sample size in Study 1 and recruited at least 50 participants per condition in our later experimental studies to ensure adequate power. In all the studies reported in this article, we recruited only participants located in the United States.

Participants were first asked to recall the most recent New Year’s Eve that they had spent in a location other than their hometown or current place of residence, and to indicate where they went, whom they were with, and what they did. They then reported their subjective temporal distance of that New Year’s Eve along two scales, from 1 (feels like yesterday/feels very close) to 9 (feels very far away/feels very distant) (Ross & Wilson, 2002; Van Boven et al., 2010). Responses to these two items were averaged (r = .86).

Participants then estimated the future likelihood of them (a) returning to the place they had spent that New Year’s Eve and (b) meeting the people they had been with that night along scales from 1 (not at all feasible) to 9 (very feasible). Responses to these two questions were correlated (r = .59, p < .001) and were averaged to form a single index of reoccurrence likelihood. We also measured participants’ memory vividness of that night by asking them to indicate the ease, vividness, frequency, and emotionality of their recall along similar 9-point scales. Their responses to these four items were combined (α = .76). Finally, participants reported the actual number of years that had passed since that particular New Year’s Eve.

Results and Discussion

The likelihood that the New Year’s Eve event would reoccur was negatively correlated with its subjective temporal distance in the past (r = −.31, p < .001). This result provided initial evidence that people perceive a past event that is unlikely to reoccur to be temporally more distant.

Both reoccurrence likelihood and subjective temporal distance could be affected by the actual time that had elapsed since the past event occurred, as events that occurred longer time ago may actually be less likely to reoccur. This was in fact the case. The actual number of years that had passed since the New Year’s Eve that participants recalled was positively correlated with their subjective time estimates (r = .40, p < .001) but was negatively correlated with their estimates of its likelihood of reoccurrence (r = −.41, p < .001). Nevertheless, the partial correlation between reoccurrence likelihood and subjective temporal distance was significant even when the actual number of years passed was controlled (r = −.18, p = .011).

To examine whether memory vividness could account for the relation between reoccurrence likelihood and past temporal distance, we performed a multiple regression analysis of subjective temporal distance as a function of reoccurrence likelihood and the combined measure of memory vividness. The effect of vividness was significant, B = −.60, t(199) = −7.26, p < .001, indicating that participants perceived the New Year’s Eve to be more recent when their recollection of the event was more vivid. However, the effect of reoccurrence likelihood was also significant, B = −.19, t(199) = −3.79, p < .001, indicating that it had an effect on subjective temporal distance even when the influence of memory vividness was controlled.

Study 2

The results of Study 1 were consistent with our hypothesis. However, the correlational nature of Study 1 does not allow us to make claims about the causal relation between reoccurrence likelihood and past subjective temporal distance. To provide evidence of this relationship, in Study 2, we experimentally manipulated participants’ perceptions of the likelihood that the New Year’s Eve experience would occur again.

In addition, in Study 1, we operationalized the past event’s reoccurrence likelihood by measuring our participants’ likelihood of both returning to the particular place and meeting with the particular people. Our analysis showed that the effects of these two measures are parallel (The partial correlation between the two measures of reoccurrence likelihood and the subjective temporal distance of that New Year’s Eve, controlling for the number of years passed, were −.18 [p = .012] and −.14 [p = .056] for the measure of place and people, respectively). Nevertheless, we argue that the destination of a particular trip or vacation should be more likely to define that event than the partners because people may often go with their families or friends whom they meet quite frequently. In this and the remaining studies, we therefore focused solely on the event’s destination in manipulating or measuring its likelihood of reoccurring.

Method

One hundred two participants were recruited on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (M_age = 27.98, SD = 8.51; 67% male). As in Study 1, participants first recalled the most recent New Year’s Eve that they had spent at a location other than their hometown or current place of residence. They gave the name of the place and described what they had done that night. Participants in the high-likelihood condition were then asked to provide one reason why it would be likely for them to visit the location again, whereas those in the low-likelihood condition were asked to provide one reason why it would be unlikely for them to do so (see Faro, Leclerc, & Hastie, 2005). All participants then reported their subjective temporal distance of the New Year’s Eve they had recalled along the same scales used in Study 1 (r = .90). Their memory vividness of that night was also assessed along the same scales used in the first study (α = .72). Participants reported their perceived likelihood of having the experience again by indicating how easy it would be for them to visit the same place again. To control for possible effects of fluency on distance judgments (Alter & Oppenheimer, 2008), participants indicated the ease with which they generated the reasons for likelihood of their revisits. Finally, participants indicated the actual number of years that had passed since the New Year’s Eve they had recalled.

Results

Participants’ perceived likelihood of revisiting the location was higher in the high-likelihood condition (M = 6.88, SD = 2.34) than in the low-likelihood condition (M = 4.31, SD = 2.72), F(1, 100) = 26.20, p < .001; d = 1.01. The two conditions did not differ in the ease of generating the reasons for their likelihood of revisits, M = 7.59, SD = 1.50 vs. M = 7.02, SD = 1.97; F(1, 100) = 2.70, p = .103.

The subjective temporal distance of the New Year’s Eve participants recalled was analyzed as a function of reoccurrence likelihood using the actual number of years that had passed as a covariate. Participants reported a greater subjective temporal distance of the New Year’s Eve when its likelihood of reoccurring was low (M = 5.36, SD = 1.99) than when it was high (M = 4.57, SD = 2.30), F(1, 99) = 4.87, p = .030; d = 0.37. Dropping objective temporal distance of the recalled events as a covariate did not significantly change the statistical conclusions of analyses in the current studies. Please refer to the online supplementary material for details.

There was no significant difference in participants’ memory vividness of that night between the high- (M = 5.73, SD = 1.44) and low-likelihood (M = 5.37, SD = 1.52), F(1, 100) = 1.45, p = .231, conditions. Similar as in Study 1, we performed a multiple regression analysis of subjective temporal distance as a function of the perceived reoccurrence likelihood and the combined measure of vividness. We also included in the independent variables participants’ reported ease of generating the reasons for their likelihood of revisiting. Results of the current analysis replicated those in Study 1: Ease of generating the reasons had no significant effect, B = .07, t(98) = .66, p = .512, whereas the effect of vividness was significant, B = −.72, t(98) = −5.87, p < .001. However, the effect of perceived reoccurrence likelihood was also significant, B = −.19, t(98) = −2.98, p = .004, indicating that it again influenced perceptions of temporal distance over and above the effects of vividness and reasoning fluency.

Discussion

By manipulating participants’ perception of the likelihood that past events would occur again, Study 2 confirmed the causal effect of this perception on estimates of the time the events occurred in the past. Moreover, reoccurrence likelihood had no effect on judgments of vividness. Thus, the effect of reoccurrence likelihood influenced subjective temporal distance independently of participants’ memory vividness of the past event. The next study provided further confirmation of this conclusion.

Study 3

In the present study, participants recalled a past vacation and were instructed to describe either a positive or negative moment that had occurred during that vacation. Participants who described a negative moment were likely to evaluate the vacation less favorably and therefore to have a less vivid image of it, than participants who described a positive moment (see Ross & Wilson, 2002). If the effect of reoccurrence likelihood was due to the vividness of the image that participants formed of the vacation, then our manipulation of the past vacation’s image vividness should also have a main effect on its subjective temporal distance independent of our reoccurrence likelihood manipulation. In fact, however, this was not the case.

Method

Three hundred six participants were recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (M_age = 33.52, SD = 11.84; 47% male). Participants were randomly assigned to cells of a 2 (description: positive vs. negative) × 2 (reoccurrence likelihood: high vs. low) between-participants design. Participants first recalled a past vacation by indicating the name of the destination and briefly describing what they did. Next, they described either a positive, pleasant moment (positive description conditions) or a negative, unpleasant moment (negative description conditions) that had occurred during the vacation. Perceptions of the likelihood that the vacation would reoccur were then manipulated as in Study 2.

Participants then reported their subjective temporal distance (r = .83) and their memory vividness of the past vacation (α = .70) using the same scales used in earlier studies. Participants also indicated their perceived likelihood of the vacation’s reoccurrence. Finally, participants evaluated the past vacation they had recalled along a scale from −5 (extremely negative and unpleasant) to 5 (extremely positive and pleasant) and completed other measures as in previous studies.

Results and Discussion

Our manipulations of reoccurrence likelihood and memory vividness were successful and independent of each other. Participants reported a higher likelihood of revisiting the vacation destination in the high-likelihood conditions (M = 7.09, SD = 2.18) than in the low-likelihood conditions (M = 5.00, SD = 2.33), F(1, 302) = 66.00, p < .001; d = 0.93. On the contrary, participants in the positive description conditions gave better evaluations for (M = 3.77, SD = 1.61) and reported a more vivid image of the past vacation (M = 6.98, SD = 1.16) than those in the negative description conditions—evaluation: M = 3.12, SD = 1.85; F(1, 302) = 10.57, p = .001; d = 0.37; vividness: M = 6.55, SD = 1.27; F(1, 302) = 9.76, p = .002; d = 0.35. No other effects in these analyses were significant (ps > .10). However, participants found it easier to recall positive moments (M = 8.01, SD = 1.34) than negative ones (M = 5.93, SD = 2.49), F(1, 302) = 82.07, p < .001; d = 1.04. We therefore controlled for this difference in subsequent analysis.

An analysis of the subjective temporal distance of the past vacation as a function of reoccurrence likelihood conditions and description conditions, using actual number of years that had passed and the ease of recalling the specific moment as covariates, yielded only a main effect of reoccurrence likelihood, F(1, 300) = 13.70, p < .001; d = 0.40; see Figure 1. That is, participants perceived the temporal distance of the past vacation to be greater when its likelihood of reoccurring was low (M = 5.30, SD = 2.14) than when it was high (M = 4.44, SD = 2.11), and this was true regardless of whether memory vividness of the vacation was high—M = 5.41, SD = 2.25 vs. M = 4.41, SD = 2.11; F(1, 300) = 8.48, p = .004; d = 0.46—or low—M = 5.19, SD = 2.03 vs. M = 4.48, SD = 2.13; F(1, 300) = 4.39, p = .037; d = 0.34. Neither the effect of the description manipulation nor its interaction with reoccurrence likelihood was significant (ps > .80). These results again indicate that differences in memory vividness cannot easily account for the effects we observed.

Figure 1.

Effects of an event’s reoccurrence likelihood in the future and its memory vividness on its subjective temporal distance in the past (Study 3).

Study 4

Results of the first three studies suggested that the effect of an event’s likelihood of reoccurring in the future on estimates of its temporal distance in the past was not mediated by the vividness of the images that participants formed of the event. Study 4 evaluated the possible role of behavioral mind-set and anchoring in the current effect. As noted earlier, both conceptualizations suggest that perceptions of the likelihood that an event would occur in the future should affect not only estimates of the time this event occurred in the past but also temporal distance judgments of other, unrelated events as well.

The present study investigated this possibility. We asked participants to recall either a past vacation or a past school reunion. Independent of their recalled past event, we then manipulated our participants’ perceived likelihood of either a future vacation or a future reunion. The behavioral mind-set and anchoring accounts would predict a main effect of future likelihood such that a future event’s likelihood influences distance judgments of a past event regardless of whether the two events are the same or unrelated. On the contrary, we expect an interaction effect such that the likelihood of a future event would only have an impact on subjective temporal distance of the past when it is the same as the past event but not when it is unrelated to the past event.

Method

Three hundred ninety-eight participants were recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (M_age = 33.91, SD = 10.42; 57% male). They were randomly assigned to cells of a 2 (past event: vacation vs. school reunion) × 2 (relatedness between past and future events: same vs. unrelated) × 2 (future event’s likelihood: high vs. low) between-participants design.

Participants were told that they would be asked questions about one or two personal events. About half of the participants first recalled one of their memorable vacations in the past. The other half recalled their last school reunion. (Two participants in the reunion conditions indicated that they had never attended any school reunions and had no event to recall. Data from these two participants were not included in the analyses.) Then, participants in the same-event conditions wrote one reason why the event they had recalled was likely or unlikely to occur again. In the unrelated-event conditions, participants who had recalled a past vacation described why a future school reunion was likely or unlikely to occur and participants who had recalled a past reunion described why a future vacation was likely or unlikely to occur. After that, participants reported their subjective temporal distance of the respective past events they had recalled earlier (r = .88) and completed other measures as in previous studies.

Results and Discussion

Participants estimated the likelihood of the future event to be higher in the high future likelihood conditions (M = 6.71, SD = 2.38) than in the low future likelihood conditions (M = 4.30, SD = 2.65), F(1, 392) = 92.93, p < .001; d = 0.96, and this was true regardless of whether the future event was the same or unrelated to the past event (interaction F < 1). In addition, they estimated that the future event was more likely to occur when it was the same as the past event they had recalled (M = 5.75, SD = 2.67) than when it was unrelated to the past event (M = 5.28, SD = 2.89), F(1, 392) = 4.98, p = .026; d = 0.17. There were no significant effects of our manipulations on participants’ ease of generating the reasons regarding the likelihood of the future events (Fs < 1).

The subjective temporal distance of the recalled past events was analyzed as a function of past event, relatedness, and future likelihood, with actual number of years that had passed as a covariate. The main effect of future event’s likelihood was not significant (F < 1). In contrast, the expected interaction of future likelihood and event relatedness was significant, F(1, 387) = 7.32, p = .007, η_p² = .02; see Figure 2, and was independent of the domain of the past event that participants recalled, three-way interaction: F(1, 387) = 1.26, p = .263. When the past and the future events were the same, participants perceived the past event to be temporally more distant if its likelihood of reoccurring was low (M = 6.11, SD = 1.97) than when it was high (M = 5.24, SD = 2.00), F(1, 387) = 10.09, p = .002; d = 0.44. When the past and future events were unrelated, however, the subjective temporal distance of the past event did not depend on whether the likelihood of the future event was low (M = 5.40, SD = 2.13) or high (M = 5.73, SD = 2.15), F(1, 387) = 1.43, p = .232. These results therefore contradict implications of both a behavioral mind-set and an anchoring interpretation of the current effect.

Figure 2.

Effects of a future event’s likelihood on a past event’s subjective temporal distance when the future event is the same as or unrelated to the past event (Study 4).

Study 5

The preceding studies confirmed the hypothesis that participants’ perceptions of the likelihood that a past event will reoccur in the future influence their perceptions of the time it occurred in the past. At the same time, they called into question the possibility that the effects are mediated by vividness of the images that individuals form of the event. Furthermore, the evidence that the effects are domain specific argues against interpretations of the effects in terms of either the effect of behavioral mind-set or anchoring.

The next two studies evaluated the validity of the feeling generalization hypothesis we have suggested. That is, an event’s future likelihood influences its subjective temporal distance in the future, leading people to judge the future event to be subjectively more distant when its likelihood is low than when it is high (Trope & Liberman, 2010). These subjective feelings of closeness or remoteness of the event in the future may generalize to the occurrence of the event in the past, disposing people to make a similar estimate of its temporal distance in the past.

Our results provided support for this hypothesis. The present study confirmed the assumption that the effect of a past event’s likelihood of reoccurrence on estimates of its temporal distance in the past is mediated by perceptions of the event’s temporal distance in the future. Our final study directly manipulated people’s perceptions of the time an event will reoccur in the future and showed these perceptions’ influence on the subjective temporal distance of the event’s occurrence in the past.

Method

Two hundred fifty-one participants (M_age = 33.66, SD = 12.28; 51% male) were recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. The design and procedure in this study were similar to those in Study 2. After participants reported their perceived temporal distance of the past vacation, however, they estimated the number of years it would be before they take another vacation to the same place. Six participants’ responses to this question were uninterpretable (e.g., “I just returned.”) and two others answered “zero.” Data from these eight participants were excluded from our analyses.

Results and Discussion

Participants’ likelihood of revisiting the vacation destination was higher in the high-likelihood condition (M = 6.92, SD = 1.97) than in the low-likelihood condition (M = 5.07, SD = 2.24), F(1, 241) = 46.68, p < .001; d = 0.88. There was no significant difference between the conditions in ease of generating the reasons for the vacation’s likelihood of reoccurring (F < 1).

Participants’ subjective perceptions of the temporal distance of the past vacation were analyzed as a function of reoccurrence likelihood using actual number of years that had passed as a covariate. Participants estimated the time since the past vacation to be longer when they perceived the vacation’s likelihood of reoccurring to be low (M = 4.94, SD = 2.03) than when they perceived it to be high (M = 4.33, SD = 1.99), F(1, 240) = 4.41, p = .037; d = 0.30.

Participants’ estimates of the future temporal distance of the vacation were taken natural log to correct for skewness. An analysis of these estimates revealed that the estimated number of years until the future vacation was greater in the low-likelihood condition (raw M = 3.01, SD = 2.57) than in the high-likelihood condition (raw M = 2.25, SD = 2.11), F(1, 241) = 10.80, p = .001; d = 0.43. Furthermore, bootstrapping analysis (Hayes, 2013) confirmed the mediating effect of future temporal distance on past temporal distance. Based on 5,000 bootstrap samples, the indirect effect of future time estimates was significant (B = −.10, boot SE = .06), with its 95% bias-corrected confidence interval (CI) excluding zero [−0.2652, −0.0115]. Moreover, the direct effect of reoccurrence likelihood on past temporal distance became non-significant when the effect of future time estimates was taken into account—B = −.50, t(240) = −1.91, p > .05; 95% CI = [−1.0178, 0.0161], including zero. Therefore, these results supported the claim that an event’s distance in the future mediated the effect of its reoccurrence likelihood on its subjective temporal distance in the past.

Study 6

Study 6 further evaluated a feeling generalization account of our findings by directly manipulating the mediator, that is, an event’s perceived distance in the future (Spencer, Zanna, & Fong, 2005). In doing so, it investigated the effect of future temporal distance using events that reoccur at fixed intervals. Many events reoccur at fixed times, such as presidential elections or many sports tournaments. In such cases, the actual time that has elapsed since the event’s past occurrence can be inferred from the time remaining until its future occurrence (they are inversely related). Nevertheless, subjective time perceptions do not correspond perfectly to objective time (Zauberman, Kim, Malkoc, & Bettman, 2009). To this extent, a feeling generalization account would predict that, contrary to logical inference based on objective time, the more imminent the future occurrence feels, the closer the past occurrence would feel.

Study 6 examined this possibility. We manipulated participants’ perceptions of the temporal distance of the next Summer Olympic Games by first directing their attention to either a near or a distant future event. We reasoned that participants would feel the next Summer Olympics to be further in the future when they were primed to think about a near event than when they were primed to think about a distant one (for similar manipulations, see Dai & Fishbach, 2014; Monga & Bagchi, 2012). Consequently, they should judge the last Olympics to be subjectively more distant when the next Olympics feels far than when it feels near.

Method

One hundred participants (M_age = 33.43, SD = 9.77; 60% male) were recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. They were told that the study was about sports and consisted of two parts, each concerning a different sports event. In the first part, participants in the far-reoccurrence condition were asked to think about the coming NBA championship (about 3 weeks away from the time this study was done) and to predict which two of four teams would make it to the finals. Thinking of this near event should make the coming Olympics seem relatively distant. In contrast, participants in the near-reoccurrence condition were asked to think about the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia (about 3 years away from the time this study was done) and to predict which two of four teams were most likely to make it to the final game. Participants then indicated how much they liked to watch basketball/soccer, and the extent to which they were looking forward to the event along scales from 1 (not at all) to 9 (very much/to a great extent). Responses to these two items were combined to form a single index of participants’ liking for the sports event they had considered (r = .91). Participants also reported how temporally distant the priming events felt to them along two scales from 1 (feels like tomorrow/feels very close) to 9 (feels very far away/feels very distant) and the responses to these two items were averaged (r = .93).

In the second part of the study, participants read that the next Summer Olympics would be held in Rio de Janeiro in the next year (2016). They indicated how much they liked to watch the Olympic Games, and the extent to which they were looking forward to it (r = .92). Then, they were asked to think back to the previous 2012 London Olympics and to indicate how far away it felt to them along the two items used to assess subjective temporal distance in the previous studies (r = .82). Finally, they indicated their perceived temporal distance to the 2016 Rio Olympics (r = .88).

Results and Discussion

Participants reported a marginally higher liking for basketball (M = 5.03, SD = 2.65) than for soccer (M = 4.15, SD = 2.46), F(1, 98) = 2.96, p = .088; d = 0.34, but their liking for the Summer Olympics did not depend on the sports events they had considered earlier (M = 5.81, SD = 2.34 vs. M = 5.76, SD = 2.31, F < 1). As expected, participants perceived the 2018 FIFA World Cup to be temporally further in the future (M = 6.93, SD = 1.62) than the coming NBA finals (M = 4.20, SD = 2.03), F(1, 98) = 55.33, p < .001; d = 1.49. Correspondingly, they reported feeling that the 2016 Olympics were closer if they had previously thought about the FIFA World Cup (M = 5.79, SD = 1.79) than if they had previously thought about the NBA finals (M = 6.70, SD = 1.56), F(1, 98) = 7.32, p = .008; d = 0.54. However, different from what would be expected based on objective time, participants reported feeling closer to the past (2012) Olympics when they felt the next one to be near (M = 6.17, SD = 1.83) than when they felt the next one to be far (M = 7.13, SD = 1.75), F(1, 98) = 7.19, p = .009; d = 0.54.

However, an alternative interpretation of the present findings is that our manipulation using future event primes (NBA and FIFA World Cup) could have directly influenced the subjective temporal distance of the past Olympics rather than through the effect of perceptions of the future Olympics. This was not the case, however. Bootstrapping analyses based on 5,000 bootstrap samples showed that participants’ subjective temporal distance of the next Olympics mediated the effect of our manipulation on subjective temporal distance of the last Olympics, indirect effect B = .32, boot SE = .17; 95% bias-corrected CI = [0.0767, 0.7646], excluding zero; direct effect: B = .64, t(97) = 1.81, p > .05; 95% CI = [−0.0610, 1.3357], including zero. In contrast, participants’ perceived distance of the priming events did not mediate the effect of our manipulation on subjective temporal distance of the last Olympics: The indirect effect of the priming events’ distance was not significant, B = −.17, boot SE = .37; 95% bias-corrected CI = [−0.9211, 0.5493], including zero, whereas the direct effect of our manipulation was reliable, B = 1.13, t(97) = 2.51, p < .05; 95% CI = [0.2339, 2.0177], excluding zero.

General Discussion

People’s memory and appraisal of the past can be influenced by their current goals, motivations, and beliefs (e.g., Cowley, 2008; Galak & Meyvis, 2011; Loftus, 1979; May & Irmak, 2014; Ross, 1989; Wilson & Ross, 2003). To our knowledge, however, few studies have investigated whether people’s perceptions of the future can affect their judgments of the time an event occurred in the past. Six studies found that a past event is perceived to have occurred more recently if it is likely to reoccur than if it is not. Our results suggest that an event’s likelihood of reoccurring influences the perception of the time it will occur in the future and that this perception, in turn, affects subjective judgments of the event’s temporal distance in the past.

Although several of the factors we considered could potentially contribute to perceptions of past temporal distance, they do not appear able to account for our results. For example, people might construe a future event more vividly if its likelihood of reoccurring is high (Wakslak et al., 2006) and this image may affect their memory of the time the event occurred in the past. However, reoccurrence likelihood had a significant effect on subjective temporal distance even when the influence of memory vividness was controlled (Studies 1 and 2). In Study 3, in which vividness and reoccurrence likelihood were independently manipulated, perceptions of the recency of the past event did not depend on vividness. Therefore, although memory vividness of a past event is likely to be correlated with perceptions of the event’s temporal distance, it cannot account for our present findings.

Other conceptualizations also have difficulty accounting for the effects we observed. For example, the generalization of judgments over different dimensions of psychological distance and over different tenses might be attributed to a behavioral mind-set (Wyer et al., 2012) that, having been activated in judging future events, influences judgments of past events as well. The use of future distance as an anchor in making judgments of the past also seemed plausible on a priori grounds. These conceptualizations, however, suggest that the effects would generalize to distance judgments of other, unrelated past events (e.g., Critcher & Gilovich, 2008; Xu & Wyer, 2008). Study 4, however, indicated that this was not the case. Thus, although these conceptualizations might not be unequivocally dismissed, additional assumptions would be required to apply them to the results we obtained.

Construal level theory (Trope & Liberman, 2010) also cannot account for our findings without additional assumptions. This conceptualization, which assumes that values along different dimensions of psychological distance are related, could account for the effect of an event’s reoccurrence likelihood on estimates of the time it will occur in the future, as found in Study 5. In its present form, however, this theory does not explain the effect of temporal distance of the future on perceptions of temporal distance of the past. One possibility is that people may assume a positive relationship between an event’s reoccurrence likelihood in the future and probability of occurrence in the past and therefore future likelihood can affect judgments of past temporal distance via the event’s frequency in the past. However, an event’s future reoccurrence likelihood and past frequency are separable and are often inversely related (e.g., assuming a fixed total number of occurrences). Moreover, in the present studies, we have varied reoccurrence likelihood without changing the frequency with which the event occurred previously. Therefore, it seems unlikely that our effect was caused by people’s different perceptions of the events’ frequency in the past.

The failure of these conceptualizations to provide a complete account of the effects we have identified increases the viability of a feeling generalization interpretation we proposed. As Study 6 showed, participants’ estimates of temporal distance are subjective and can be influenced independently of the objective time that the events occur. In the situations we investigated, individuals who consider a future event to be unlikely may perceive its occurrence to be remote whereas those who perceive the event is likely to occur may feel that it is fairly imminent. These feelings may generalize when people estimate the time the event occurred in the past and they may use these feelings as a basis for their estimates. This could potentially account for the effects we identified and is consistent with other evidence supporting a directional symmetry in temporal distance judgments (Peetz et al., 2009; Ross & Wilson, 2002; Van Boven et al., 2010).

Some unsolved issues of the current research are noted. In the present studies, we demonstrated the effect and tested its underlying mechanism without venturing too far toward boundary conditions. For example, the present research focuses almost exclusively on positive events and does not examine events with negative valence. In addition, special or extraordinary events have not been examined. Based on the current mechanism, we speculate that our effect should be attenuated for both negative and special events because people rarely anticipate or consider their reoccurrence in the future (Newby-Clark & Ross, 2003).

Although a feeling generalization account of our findings is plausible, further factors, not considered in the present series of studies, should be examined. For example, one interesting proposition that we did not evaluate in the present research is that people may be motivated to distance a past event that is desirable but nevertheless unlikely to occur again to reduce their cognitive dissonance or the negative feeling of wistfulness (cf. Kahneman & Tversky, 1982). This alternative hypothesis is not incompatible with our findings, but its influences may be independent of the process we assume.

Another possibility pertains to an event’s relevance to an individual. Events are likely to vary in their personal relevance or importance, and this could influence estimates of both the time the event is likely to occur and the time it occurred in the past. That is, people might perceive future events to be more relevant to their current self if they are imminent than if they are not, and might consider recent past events to be more personally relevant than distant ones. Thus, if people perceive an event that is likely to reoccur to be personally more relevant, and if this perception generalizes when they estimate the event’s occurrence in the past, they might judge the event to have occurred more recently. This possibility is worth examining, and it raises an important question as to whether the feeling generalization hypothesis is limited to distance judgment or applies to various other types of feelings as well. If the latter case is true, then the current effect is a specific example of a much broader process. Therefore, we consider our findings to be more provocative than definitive and hopefully they will stimulate further research that will pinpoint more precisely the factors that underlie the current findings.

Implications for Self-Regulation

People who self-regulate often choose to do so by setting self-imposed regulation plans or constraints. For example, people with a goal of financial management may restrain their budgets and frequency of vacations; and people who wish to quit smoking may only buy a small number of cigarettes during each trip to the cigarette store. These self-regulation strategies could be effective, but our findings suggest that they may also backfire. Plenty of research has shown that subjective estimates of temporal distance have important influence on people’s judgments and decision making (Dai & Fishbach, 2013, 2014; Galak, Redden, Yang, & Kyung, 2014; May & Irmak, 2014; Ross & Wilson, 2002). Self-regulation constraints imply a decreased likelihood of future vacation or smoke of cigarette for people who implement them. Accordingly, they may perceive their last act of indulgence to be temporally more distant. This biased perception of the temporal distance of their last indulgence could make their decision to indulge again easier to justify (May & Irmak, 2014). The current research therefore suggests one possibility where setting a self-regulation constraint may ironically encourage the decision to indulge.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, Grants CUHK 14603615 and GRF 452813.

Supplemental Material

The online supplemental material is available at .

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