Consciousness and Cognition 66 (2018) 26–39

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Consciousness and Cognition
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/concog

Full Length Article

Wanting or having to: The role of goal self-concordance in episodic
future thinking

T⁎Alexandra Ernsta, , Frederick L. Philippeb, Arnaud D'Argembeauaab

Psychology and Neuroscience of Cognition Research Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Liège, Belgium
ELABORER – Laboratory for Research on Emotions and Representations, Department of Psychology, University of Quebec at Montreal, Canada

A R T IC LE I N F O

ABS TRA CT

Keywords:
Episodic future thought
Goals
Motivation
Self-concordance
Psychological needs

While it is established that goal processing is a central component of episodic future thinking,how personal goals shape future event representations is not fully understood. Here, we exploredthe inﬂuence of the source of motivation underlying goal pursuit. Personal goals diﬀer in theirdegree of self-concordance, which depends on the primary motives underlying goal pursuit. We
distinguished between self-concordant (what one wants to achieve) and non-self-concordant(what one has to achieve) goals. Participants were asked to imagine speciﬁc future events associated with each type of goals. We found that self-concordant future events have a privileged
phenomenological status: they are associated with a stronger sense of “realness” and of preexperiencing the future, are more integrated with autobiographical knowledge, and are characterized by more positive and intense emotions. Furthermore, psychological need satisfaction
was a characteristic component of self-concordant future thoughts. Implications of these ﬁndings
for motivation and goal pursuit are discussed.

1. Introduction
People spend a great deal of time thinking and planning for events that might happen in their personal future (Berntsen &Jacobsen, 2008; D’Argembeau, Renaud, & Van der Linden, 2011). Functional theories of prospection (Baumeister, Vohs, & Oettingen,2016; Bulley, Henry, & Suddendorf, 2016; Miloyan & Suddendorf, 2015) have emphasized the adaptive value of future-oriented
thoughts in guiding actions toward desired outcomes. As such, most future thoughts are not incidental but represent future possibilities that are relevant to current needs and goals. In this context, goals serve to specify and direct actions, fostering people’s energy,
persistence, and self-regulation until goal achievement (Sheldon, 2014).
Within the last years, the ﬁeld of prospection has undergone a surge of interest in the role of personal goals in the mental
simulation of speciﬁc future events—often referred to as episodic future thinking (Atance & O’Neill, 2001; Szpunar, 2010). In particular, research has shown that personal goals facilitate the construction of episodic future thoughts (D’Argembeau & Mathy, 2011)
and contribute to organize them in coherent networks of personal events (D’Argembeau & Demblon, 2012; Demblon & D’Argembeau,2014). Furthermore, mental representations of future events that are connected to personal goals have a privileged status in terms of
their phenomenology and cognitive-emotional impact: they are more vivid, more frequently rehearsed, more important, more positive and emotionally intense, and have a greater impact on current mood than future thoughts unrelated to personal goals (Cole &Berntsen, 2016). Representations of goal-related future events are also better integrated with autobiographical knowledge (e.g., they⁎
Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology – Psychology and Neuroscience of Cognition Research Unit, University of Liège, Place desOrateurs 1 (B33), B-4000 Liège, Belgium.
E-mail address: alexandra.ernst@uliege.be (A. Ernst).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2018.10.004
Received 27 July 2018; Received in revised form 19 September 2018; Accepted 15 October 2018
Available online 01 November 20181053-8100/ © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Consciousness and Cognition 66 (2018) 26–39

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are linked to general expectations that one has about oneself and one’s life) and are associated with a stronger sense of “preexperiencing” the future (referred to as autonoetic experience; Lehner & D’Argembeau, 2016).
While these ﬁndings indicate that goal processing is a central component of episodic future thinking (D’Argembeau, 2016), howpersonal goals shape and inﬂuence future event representations is not yet fully understood. Indeed, research has thus far simply
compared representations of goal-related versus goal-unrelated future events (Cole & Berntsen, 2016; D’Argembeau & Mathy, 2011;
Lehner & D’Argembeau, 2016) and no study to date has examined how the nature and qualitative properties of personal goals
inﬂuence the representation of associated future events. Most notably, an important feature of personal goals is the source of motivation underlying goal pursuit (Milyavskaya, Nadolny, & Koestner, 2014; Milyavskaya, Inzlicht, Hope, & Koestner, 2015). This
raises the question of whether we contemplate personal future scenarios in the same way when they correspond to things we want toor things we have to do (Milyavskaya et al., 2015).
An interesting conceptual framework for addressing this issue comes from self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Ryan &Deci, 2017), which conceives motivation as a continuum of diﬀerent sources that inﬂuence cognition and behavior. At one end,
autonomous motivation reﬂects the most self-determined form of motivation and refers to behaviors that meet inherent interests,
values, or satisfactions. At the opposite end, controlled motivation corresponds to behaviors that are driven by external pressures orare performed because of their instrumental value. According to Sheldon and Elliot's self-concordance model (1998, 1999), thesesources of motivation reﬂect the degree to which goals are integrated with the self. In this model, self-concordant goals derive fromautonomous motivation and personal choice and endorsement. Goals are thus pursued because of their inherent interest and enjoyment (i.e., intrinsic motivation), because they are personally important (i.e., identiﬁed motivation), or because the goal reﬂects
personal convictions, values, or beliefs that are core to the person’s identity (i.e., integrated motivation; Milyavskaya et al., 2015;
Sheldon, 2014; Sheldon & Elliot, 1998, 1999). Conversely, non-self-concordant goals have no direct connection to the self and instead
stem from controlled motivation. Goals are thus pursued because of external coercions or pressures, such as environmental circumstances or incentives (i.e., extrinsic motivation), or to avoid negative feelings (e.g., guilt, shame, or anxiety) or sanctions (i.e.,
introjected motivation; Milyavskaya et al., 2015; Sheldon & Elliot, 1998, 1999). In short, self-concordant goals typically correspondto personal projects that one wants to achieve, whereas non-self-concordant goals usually refer to things that one has to do(Milyavskaya et al., 2015).1 Research based on this model has shown that self-concordant goals lead to more implementation intentions (Carraro & Gaudreau, 2011) and sustained eﬀort in goal pursuit (Sheldon & Elliot, 1998, 1999), are more frequently rehearsed (Higgins, 1996), and promote self-regulation (Milyavskaya et al., 2015) and successful goal achievement (Koestner, Otis,
Powers, Pelletier, & Gagnon, 2008).
Self-concordant goals are expected to be more eﬀective than non-self-concordant goals because they are more likely to satisfy
basic psychological needs. According to self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2017), there are three basic
universal needs that people strive to satisfy: autonomy (i.e., the desire to be in control of one’s own behavior, to feel volitional andauthentic in one’s actions), competence (i.e., the need to be eﬀective and develop mastery), and relatedness (i.e., the need to feel
connected to others, to care for others and be cared for by others). Research on autobiographical memory has shown that needsatisfaction is a speciﬁc cognitive-aﬀective component of memories for personal past events, which is distinct from other memory
features such as their emotional valence, personal signiﬁcance, or vividness (Philippe, Koestner, Beaulieu-Pelletier, & Lecours, 2011;
Philippe, Koestner, Beaulieu-Pelletier, Lecours, & Lekes, 2012). Furthermore, it has been found that the level of need satisfaction
characterizing memories acts as a motivational property to predict future actions and behaviors (e.g., Philippe, Koestner, & Lekes,
2013). Surprisingly, although future thinking undoubtedly plays an important role in motivating future behaviors, few studies to datehave examined whether need satisfaction is also a characteristic component of future event representations (but see Demblon &D’Argembeau, 2016). This question is important since it is believed that goal information in the form of future event representations
is used to guide the satisfaction of basic psychological needs (Dweck, 2017).
In the present study, we examined how diﬀerent types of motivation underlying goal pursuit inﬂuence the characteristics of
episodic future thoughts. Previous research has shown that episodic future thinking can be characterized along three main dimensions: sensory-perceptual characteristics (e.g., vividness), cognitive feelings (e.g., autonoetic experience), and the integration ofimagined events with autobiographical knowledge (D’Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2012; Ernst & D’Argembeau, 2017). Following
the self-concordance model (Sheldon & Elliot, 1998, 1999), we expected that episodic future thoughts derived from self-concordantgoals would be more integrated with autobiographical knowledge (as indicated by their personal importance, links with other events,
and underlying identity motives). Most importantly, we also predicted that self-concordance would impact cognitive feelings, leading
to a stronger sense of “realness” when imagining events (belief in occurrence; Ernst & D’Argembeau, 2017) and a sense of preexperiencing the future (autonoetic experience; D’Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2012). Our primary interest lied in these two
properties of episodic future thoughts (autobiographical integration and cognitive feelings) because the integration and perceived“reality” of imagined events may play a key role in determining people’s decisions and actions (Baumeister et al., 2016). On the other
hand, we did not have speciﬁc hypotheses regarding the inﬂuence of goal self-concordance on the sensory-perceptual characteristics
of mental representations. Besides these three dimensions of episodic future thoughts, we assessed other event features that are1
The construct of goal self-concordance is conceptually related to the notion of possible selves (Markus & Nurius, 1986), and more speciﬁcally
self-regulatory possible selves (i.e., possible selves that represent a self-deﬁning goal and include speciﬁc behavioral strategies for pursuing this goal;
Hoyle & Sherrill, 2006). However, the distinction between hoped for and feared possible selves (i.e., states that one wants to attain or to avoid) does
not completely overlap with the notion of self-concordant and non-self-concordant goals because non-self-concordant goals are not necessarily
associated with avoidance but may instead represent things that have to be attained although one feels coerced to do so.

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typically included in studies of episodic future thinking (e.g., emotion, rehearsal, temporal distance; Cole & Berntsen, 2016; Ernst &D’Argembeau, 2017; McDermott, Wooldridge, Rice, Berg, & Szpunar, 2016), although we did not have hypotheses concerning thesevariables.
Our second aim was to investigate the degree of need satisfaction within episodic future thoughts. Based on self-determination
theory, we hypothesized that future events derived from self-concordant goals would be more need-satisfying in terms of autonomy,competence, and relatedness. This would provide further evidence that need satisfaction is a characteristic component of episodic
future thoughts (Demblon & D’Argembeau, 2016) and that goal information in the form of future event representations is driven bybasic psychological needs (Dweck, 2017).
In summary, our overarching aim was to better understand how mental representations of future events are shaped by personalgoals. To test our hypotheses, we compared verbal descriptions and ratings of phenomenological characteristics of future events
produced in association with self-concordant and non-self-concordant goals.
2. Material and methods
2.1. Participants
Forty-nine students took part in the study but data from two participants were excluded due to diﬃculties in following the
instructions. The ﬁnal sample included 47 participants (36 women; mean age = 22.19 years, SD = 2.50; mean education
years = 15.17, SD = 2.41). All participants were students in Belgian or French universities, were ﬂuent in French, and participated inthis experiment as volunteers. None reported the presence of a current depression episode. The sample size was determined a priori inorder to have suﬃcient statistical power (i.e., 90%) to detect medium within-subjects diﬀerences (d = 0.5) using an alpha of 0.05
(two-tailed; Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, Buchner, & Kiel, 2007). The study was approved by the University of Liège Ethics Committee andall participants gave written informed consent.
2.2. Material and procedure
Participants were ﬁrst asked to select a series of personal goals. Personal goals were deﬁned as personal objectives or projects thatare frequently thought about, for which one makes plans, and that one strives to achieve, with more or less diﬃculty (Lehner &D’Argembeau, 2016). These projects could be achieved more or less quickly, and could refer to any life domain, such as school, work,
family, intimate relationships, leisure activities, and material goods. More speciﬁcally, participants were instructed to select six
personal projects associated with diﬀerent goal orientations: three that were primarily driven by self-concordant motives and threethat were primarily driven by non-self-concordant motives (selected in a counterbalanced order). This distinction was based on
Sheldon and Elliot's self-concordance model (1999) that categorizes personal goals on the basis of their degree of self-concordance,
depending on the primary motive(s) underlying goal pursuit. Self-concordant goals are generally driven by autonomous reasons (i.e.,
intrinsic, integrated, and identiﬁed motivations) and refer to projects that are pursued because they provide fun or enjoyment, reﬂect
one’s personal values, or out of personal interest and importance. Conversely, non-self-concordant goals are essentially motivated bycontrolled reasons (i.e., introjected and extrinsic motivations), and correspond to projects that are pursued because one would feelashamed, guilty, or anxious not to do it or because one feels obliged to (for instance because somebody else or the situation requiresit). The instructions emphasized that these goal orientations are not strictly dichotomous and that some personal goals could in partbe driven by both types of motivation. However, participants were instructed to produce personal goals that reﬂect as distinctly as
possible these two types of goals.
To verify the primary goal orientation of the selected projects, participants were asked to rate their reasons for pursuing each
personal goal on a series of 9-point rating scales (adapted from Sheldon & Elliot, 1999), ranging from 1 (not at all for this reason) to 9(completely for this reason): two items assessed non-self-concordant motives (“you pursue this goal because somebody else wants you
to or because the situation demands it”; “you pursue this goal because you would feel ashamed, guilty, or anxious if you didn't”) and
two items assessed self-concordant motives (“you pursue this goal because of the fun and enjoyment that it provides you”; “youpursue this goal because you really believe it's an important goal you have”). For each goal, a score of self-concordance was thencalculated by subtracting the sum of ratings for non-self-concordant motives from the sum of ratings for self-concordant motives.
After the six personal goals had been produced, participants were asked to generate one speciﬁc future event (i.e., a uniqueepisode happening at a speciﬁc time and place, and lasting no longer than a day) in association with each goal. The instructions
speciﬁed that the imagined event should be directly linked or part of the corresponding goal. Examples were provided to ensure
participants’ understanding of the notion of speciﬁcity. There was no instruction on the temporal distance of events. For each event,participants provided a short title summarizing the essence of the event and speciﬁed the place/location where it will occur and an
estimated date of occurrence; this enabled us to verify the speciﬁcity of the selected events.
After having generated the six future events, participants were asked to imagine each event in as much detail as possible,
including details about location, actions, people, objects, emotions, and so on. Participants’ descriptions were audio-recorded andlater transcribed for scoring. Immediately after each event description, participants completed a series of ratings using 7-point Likert
scales (see Appendix A). Three rating scales assessed cognitive feelings when imagining the event (D’Argembeau & Van der Linden,
2012; Ernst & D’Argembeau, 2017; Lehner & D’Argembeau, 2016): one item for belief in occurrence (the subjective feeling that an
event will really occur in the future), and two items for autonoetic experience (one for mental time travel and one for the feeling of
pre-experiencing the event). Another set of items assessed the sensory-perceptual characteristics of future events (Ernst &28

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D’Argembeau, 2017; Lehner & D’Argembeau, 2016; Sutin & Robins, 2007), including the amount of sensory details, the overall clarityof the mental representation, and the visual perspective adopted (one item for the ﬁrst-person perspective and one item for the thirdperson perspective).
The integration of future events in a broader autobiographical context was also assessed (Ernst & D’Argembeau, 2017; Lehner &D’Argembeau, 2016). Speciﬁcally, participants rated the personal importance of the events, the extent to which they are related toother past and/or future personal events, their personal plausibility (i.e., the judgment that an event has the potential to occur to theself; Scoboria, Mazzoni, Kirsch, & Relyea, 2004), and the extent to which they meet identity motives. Identity motives refer tomotivational pressures toward particular ways of seeing oneself that guide identity construction, which include motives for selfesteem (i.e., seeing oneself in a positive light), distinctiveness (i.e., believing that one is distinct from other people), continuity (i.e.,experiencing a sense of personal continuity over time despite life changes), belonging (i.e., being included and accepted within asocial circle), eﬃcacy (i.e., feeling competent and capable of inﬂuencing one’s environment), and meaning (i.e., feeling that one’s life
is meaningful; Vignoles, Manzi, Regalia, Jemmolo, & Scabini, 2008; Vignoles, Regalia, Manzi, Golledge, & Scabini, 2006).
In addition, the emotional valence and intensity of events was also assessed, both for anticipatory and anticipated emotions(which correspond, respectively, to emotions experienced in the present versus emotions expected to occur in the future; Barsics, Van
der Linden, & D’Argembeau, 2016; Baumgartner, Pieters, & Bagozzi, 2008). Some additional items measured the frequency withwhich participants had previously thought and talked about the event (i.e., rehearsal), the event’s subjective temporal distance (i.e.,
the feeling that the event is temporally close or distant from the present, regardless of its objective moment of occurrence), and thesubjective easiness of imagining (Ernst & D’Argembeau, 2017; Lehner & D’Argembeau, 2016).
Finally, participants rated the level of psychological need satisfaction associated with each future event, using items derived fromprevious research on the role of psychological need satisfaction in autobiographical memories (Bouizegarene & Philippe, 2016;
Philippe et al., 2011; Philippe et al., 2012). Each of the three basic psychological needs from self-determination theory (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness; Deci & Ryan, 2000) was assessed by two items.
To ensure that participants understood all instructions and items, they ﬁrst had to complete one practice trial, with a non-personal
event provided by the experimenter (“imagine you are lying on a sandy beach in a tropical bay”; Hassabis, Kumaran, & Maguire,2007), in order to familiarize them with the entire procedure. All instructions and measures were presented in French.
Finally, participants ﬁlled out the Balanced Time Perspective Scale (BTPS; Webster, 2011; French version by Barsics, Rebetez,
Rochat, D’Argembeau, & Van der Linden, 2017) to explore whether individual diﬀerences in the aﬀective and identity components offuture time perspective were associated with phenomenological properties of future event representations associated with selfconcordant and non-self-concordant goals. The BTPS is a 28 item-scale measuring the balance between the tendency to think aboutboth one’s past and future in positive ways. Each statement is rated on a 7-point Likert scale (ranging from 1, strongly disagree to 7,
strongly agree), with half of the items referring to past orientation and the other half to future orientation. Past orientation was
included during the testing session because it formed part of the original scale but this subscale was not used in the subsequent
analyses since we were speciﬁcally interested in future-oriented thoughts. The total testing time was about an hour and a half.
2.3. Scoring of event details
Verbal descriptions of future events were transcribed verbatim and scored using the standardized Autobiographical Interview
procedure (Levine, Svoboda, Hay, Winocur, & Moscovitch, 2002). The central event was ﬁrst determined and then each distinct detailor chunk of information was categorized as either internal (i.e., details referring to the main event, including happenings, people,
time, place, sensory perceptions, thoughts, and emotions) or external (i.e., details that do not refer to the central event, semantic
information, repetitions and metacognitive statements). The numbers of internal and external details were tallied. All future eventswere scored by the ﬁrst author and a second rater independently scored all the descriptions to assess the reliability of scoring.
Intraclass correlation coeﬃcients (Portney & Watkins, 2000) showed a high inter-rater agreement for both internal and external
details (ICC = 0.96 and 0.85, respectively).
3. Results
A total of 282 personal goals was collected (141 in each goal condition). As a manipulation check, we ﬁrst veriﬁed the primaryorientation of goals generated in each condition using the self-concordance score (averaged across the three goals within eachcondition). Positive scores indicate that goals were primarily self-concordant, whereas negative scores indicate that goals wereprimarily non-self-concordant. As expected, self-concordance scores were signiﬁcantly higher for goals produced in the self-concordant condition (M = 12.37, SD = 2.21) compared to goals elicited in the non-self-concordant condition (M = −7.82, SD = 3.21),t(46) = 31.95, p < 0.001, d = 7.37. Examples of self-concordant and non-self-concordant goals and of associated future events
produced by the participants are provided in Appendix B.
Prior to data analysis, the speciﬁcity of future events associated with goals was also checked. One non-speciﬁc event was excluded, leaving 141 future events in the self-concordant condition and 140 events in the non-self-concordant condition. Statisticalanalyses examined whether future events associated with self-concordant and non-self-concordant goals diﬀered in terms of imagined
details, phenomenological characteristics, and psychological need satisfaction. For each dependent variable, data were averaged
across the three events in each condition and were analyzed using t-tests for dependent samples or repeated measures ANOVAs. Whenclassic parametric assumptions were not met, we ran complementary analyses using robust statistical methods (Field & Wilcox,2017). In most cases, classic and robust methods yielded similar results (in which case only the results obtained using the classical29

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Table 1
Mean ratings (and standard deviations) of the phenomenological characteristics and event features of episodic future thoughts associated with selfconcordant and non-self-concordant goals.
Self-concordantNon-self-concordant

t(46)

p

d

Cognitive feelings
Belief in occurrence
Autonoetic experience

5.52 (0.77)
5.46 (0.82)

4.84 (1.17)
4.79 (1.12)

3.80
4.00

< 0.001*< 0.001*

0.71
0.68

Sensory-perceptual characteristics
Vividness
First-person perspective
Third-person perspective

4.87 (0.87)
5.63 (1.42)
2.35 (1.44)

4.30 (0.91)
5.56 (1.34)
2.28 (1.38)

4.28
0.41
0.46

< 0.001*
0.68
0.65

0.64
0.05
0.06

Autobiographical context
Personal importance
Link with other personal events
Personal plausibility

5.80 (0.90)
3.91 (1.48)
5.64 (0.81)

3.99 (1.29)
3.30 (1.39)
5.56 (0.79)

7.13
2.64
0.49

< 0.001*
0.01*
0.62

1.64
0.43
0.09

Identity motives– Self-esteem– Distinctiveness– Continuity– Belonging– Eﬃcacy– Meaning

5.60 (1.13)
3.93 (1.69)
5.23 (1.15)
4.87 (1.51)
5.26 (1.14)
5.70 (1.03)

3.86 (1.44)
2.95 (1.44)
4.03 (1.48)
3.03 (1.17)
3.37 (1.46)
3.41 (1.44)

6.68
4.08
4.30
6.93
6.48
9.89

< 0.001*< 0.001*< 0.001*< 0.001*< 0.001*< 0.001*

1.35
0.62
0.90
1.36
1.45
1.81

Rehearsal
Easiness of imagining
Subjective temporal distance

3.74 (1.45)
5.33 (0.85)
4.35 (1.14)

3.18 (1.37)
4.77 (0.81)
4.26 (1.20)

2.65
3.80
0.36

0.01*
< 0.001*
0.72

0.40
0.67
0.08

* Indicates diﬀerences that remained signiﬁcant after applying a correction for multiple comparisons using the Benjamini-Hochberg procedure(Benjamini & Hochberg, 1995).

statistical model are reported, for the sake of conciseness). When the two statistical methods deviated, the robust model is reported(as recommended by Field & Wilcox, 2017).
3.1. Amount of event details
The amount of internal and external details verbally reported for future events was on average 28.16 (SD = 16.53) and 12.28(SD = 9.77) for self-concordant goals, and 27.83 (SD = 17.61) and 11.88 (SD = 10.23) for non-self-concordant goals. A repeatedmeasures ANOVA, with goal orientation (self-concordant, non-self-concordant) and type of details (internal, external) as withinsubjects factors, showed that the number of details did not signiﬁcantly diﬀer between the two goal orientations, F(1, 46) = 0.14,
p = 0.71, ηp2 = 0.003. There was a signiﬁcant main eﬀect of the type of details, F(1, 46) = 73.86, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.62, showing that
more internal than external details were produced. The goal orientation × type of detail interaction was not signiﬁcant, F(1,46) = 0.003, p = 0.96, ηp2 = 0.001.
3.2. Phenomenological characteristics and event features
The mean ratings for the phenomenological characteristics of episodic future thoughts associated with self-concordant and nonself-concordant goals are shown in Table 1, along with the results of the corresponding paired t-tests.
First, we examined whether future events associated with the two goal orientations diﬀered in terms of the cognitive feelings
accompanying their mental simulation, in particular belief in occurrence and autonoetic experience. The two items measuring mental
time travel and the sense of experiencing the event were averaged to form an index of autonoetic experience (Spearman-Browncoeﬃcients = 0.84 and 0.86, respectively for future events associated with self-concordant goals and non-self-concordant goals).
Consistent with our hypotheses, ratings of belief in occurrence and autonoetic experience were signiﬁcantly higher for future events
deriving from self-concordant goals (Table 1).
As expected, we also found that future events that were associated with self-concordant goals were better integrated with autobiographical knowledge. Indeed, these events were associated with higher scores for autobiographical context measures, including
their personal importance2 and link(s) with other personal events. Furthermore, all identity motives (self-esteem, distinctiveness,
continuity, belonging, eﬃcacy and meaning) were rated as being met to a greater extent when imagining future events deriving fromself-concordant than non-self-concordant goals. Nonetheless, the two types of future events received equivalent ratings for personalplausibility.
2
Although this ﬁnding may not seem surprising given that personal importance is one of the deﬁning features of self-concordant goals, it should
be noted that this diﬀerence refers to the importance of imagined future events and not the importance of goals per se. Future event representations
may be imbued with personal signiﬁcance when they are connected to higher-order self-concordant goals.

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Fig. 1. Mean ratings of emotional valence (A) and emotional intensity (B) as a function of the type of future-oriented emotions (anticipatory vs.
anticipated) and the type of future events (self-concordant vs. non-self-concordant goals). Error bars show 95% conﬁdence intervals for withinsubject designs (O’Brien & Cousineau, 2014).

To examine the sensory-perceptual characteristics of episodic future thoughts, we computed a vividness index by averaging
ratings of the sensory details and overall clarity of the mental representation (Spearman-Brown coeﬃcients = 0.74 and 0.75, respectively for the self-concordant and non-self-concordant conditions). This index was signiﬁcantly higher for future thoughts associated with self-concordant goals. On the other hand, the visual perspective of mental representations (ﬁrst-person and thirdperson) did not signiﬁcantly diﬀer between the two types of events.
The emotional characteristics of episodic future thoughts was also examined by conducting repeated-measures ANOVAs on
emotional valence and intensity ratings, with goal orientation (self-concordant, non-self-concordant) and the type of emotions(anticipatory, anticipated) as within-subjects factors (see Fig. 1 for mean ratings). Regarding emotional valence, we found a signiﬁcant main eﬀect of goal orientation, F(1, 46) = 153.10, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.77, indicating that episodic future thoughts wereassociated with more positive emotions in the self-concordant than in the non-self-concordant condition. Anticipated emotions (i.e.,emotions that are expected to be experienced in the future) were judged as more positive than anticipatory emotions (i.e., emotions
that are currently experienced when imagining the future), F(1, 46) = 11.21, p = 0.002, ηp2 = 0.20. Besides, there was a signiﬁcantgoal orientation × type of future-oriented emotions interaction, F(1, 46) = 8.89, p = 0.005, ηp2 = 0.16. Follow-up comparisons(paired t-tests) showed that in the self-concordant condition anticipated emotions were judged more positive than anticipatory
emotions (p < 0.001), whereas no diﬀerence was observed in the non-self-concordant condition (p = 0.85). With regard to emotional intensity, we found a signiﬁcant main eﬀect of goal orientation, F(1, 46) = 30.57, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.40, a main eﬀect of typeof future-oriented emotions, F(1, 46) = 119.41, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.72, but no signiﬁcant interaction, F(1, 46) = 0.60, p = 0.44,

ηp2 = 0.01. Episodic future thoughts were rated as emotionally more intense in the self-concordant condition than in the non-selfconcordant condition, and emotional intensity was also higher for anticipated than anticipatory emotions.
Finally, we examined whether additional event features diﬀered between the two goal conditions, including the frequency of
rehearsal, the diﬃculty to imagine events, and their temporal characteristics (objective and subjective temporal distance). Our results
showed that future events associated with self-concordant goals were more frequently rehearsed and were easier to imagine thanfuture events derived from non-self-concordant goals. The objective temporal distance of future events was calculated by counting thenumber of months between the date of the testing session and the estimated date of occurrence of events, which showed that future
events were estimated as less distant in the non-self-concordant condition (M = 45.78, SD = 58.80) than in the self-concordantcondition (M = 57.98, SD = 40.10; robust statistical test on the 20% trimmed means, Mdiﬀ = 21.5, Yt(28) = 3.30, p = 0.003).
Interestingly, however, the two conditions did not diﬀer in terms of the subjective temporal distance of imagined events (see Table 1).
In summary, the previous analyses showed that events imagined in relation to self-concordant goals were associated with higher
levels of belief in occurrence, autonoetic experience, and vividness, and were also better integrated in an autobiographical context. It
is worth noting, however, that self-concordant events were rated as being more positive than non-self-concordant events. Given that
previous studies have shown that characteristics of imagined future events such as their vividness and importance are inﬂuenced bytheir emotional valence (D’Argembeau et al., 2011; D’Argembeau & Van Der Linden, 2004; de Vito, Neroni, Gamboz, Della Sala, &Brandimonte, 2015; Rasmussen & Berntsen, 2013), it remains possible that (some of) the diﬀerences observed in the current study
were due to the valence of produced events rather than their goal concordance per se. To examine this possibility, we conducted aseries of regression analyses with each phenomenological characteristic that showed a signiﬁcant diﬀerence in our previous analyses(see Table 1) as outcome variable, and with both the type of goal (self-concordant vs. non-self-concordant) and the valence of theevent (i.e., its anticipated emotional valence) as predictors. For these analyses, we ﬁtted multilevel models (with events as level 1
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Table 2
Mean (and standard deviations) psychological need satisfaction scores of future events associated with self-concordant and non-self-concordantgoals.

AutonomyCompetence
Relatedness

Self-concordantNon-self-concordant

1.54 (1.07)
1.76 (0.62)
1.65 (0.89)−0.88 (1.03)−0.34 (1.11)
0.32 (0.98)

t(46)
11.28
11.36
7.54

p

d
*

< 0.001< 0.001*< 0.001*

2.29
2.33
1.41

* Indicates diﬀerences that remained signiﬁcant after applying a correction for multiple comparisons using the Benjamini-Hochberg procedure(Benjamini & Hochberg, 1995).

units and participants as level 2 units) in order to take the hierarchical structure of the data into account (Goldstein, 2011). These
analyses showed that all event characteristics were signiﬁcantly predicted by goal condition (self-concordant vs. non-self-concordant), even when the valence of events was taken into account (all ps < 0.05), except for links with other events (p = 0.23) andthe identity motive of continuity (p = 0.11). These additional analyses thus demonstrate that most of the observed diﬀerences
between goal conditions were not simply due to the emotional valence of imagined events.
We also conducted additional analyses to examine whether diﬀerences in cognitive feelings between the two goal conditions canbe accounted for by diﬀerences in the vividness of episodic future thoughts. Indeed, previous research has shown that cognitive
feelings such as the sense of pre-experiencing the future is in part determined by the sensory-perceptual qualities of mental representations (D’Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2012), so it remains possible that the diﬀerences in cognitive feelings observed in thepresent study are due to the higher vividness of self-concordant thoughts. To examine this issue, we conducted multilevel regression
analyses with each cognitive feeling (i.e., autonoetic experience, belief in occurrence) as outcome variable, and with both the type ofgoal (self-concordant vs. non-self-concordant) and the vividness index as predictors. These analyses showed that both cognitive
feelings were signiﬁcantly predicted by goal condition, even when the vividness of mental representations was taken into account (allps < 0.05).
3.3. Psychological need satisfaction
Future events associated with self-concordant goals were rated as fulﬁlling all three basic psychological needs (autonomy,competence, and relatedness) to a greater extent than future events associated with non-self-concordant goals (see Table 2). In
addition, the negative scores obtained for autonomy [95% CI: −1.18, −0.57] and competence [95% CI: −0.66, −0.01] in the nonself-concordant condition indicated that these future events were actually judged as slightly need thwarting for these two dimensions.
3.4. Correlations between the phenomenological characteristics of episodic future thoughts and individual diﬀerences in time perspective
Finally, we conducted exploratory correlational analyses to examine whether the phenomenological properties of future event
representations derived from self-concordant and non-self-concordant goals were associated with individual diﬀerences in future
time perspective (Table 3). We found a series of positive correlations between the BTPS (future subscale) and the phenomenologicalproperties of episodic future thoughts, but only for events derived from self-concordant goals. In particular, our results showed thatthe more participants were oriented toward the future, the more their self-concordant future event representations were associatedwith belief in occurrence, autonoetic experience, personal importance, and meaning. In addition, participants’ future orientation was
also positively associated with the easiness of imagining events, as well as the emotional valence and intensity of anticipatory
emotions.
4. Discussion
While recent studies have shown that personal goals play an important role in the construction, organization and phenomenology
of episodic future thoughts, virtually nothing is known about whether and how the nature and quality of goals inﬂuence mental
representations of associated future events. To examine this question, we compared the features of episodic future thoughts promptedby self-concordant (i.e., things that one wants to achieve) versus non-self-concordant (i.e., things that one has to achieve) goals. Our
results demonstrate that goal self-concordance enhances the sense of “realness” of imagined events and modulates the aﬀective
qualities of episodic future thoughts. Furthermore, we found that psychological need satisfaction is a characteristic component of selfconcordant episodic future thoughts.
An important ﬁnding of this study is that phenomenological features that are at the crux of episodic future thinking—the feelingof “pre-experiencing” one’s personal future—are modulated by goal self-concordance. More speciﬁcally, we found that future events
derived from self-concordant goals were associated with a stronger belief in occurrence and a stronger impression of going into the
future to pre-experience imagined scenarios (i.e., autonoetic experience). This stronger sense of “realness” attached to episodic future
thoughts may stem from the integration of imagined events with autobiographical knowledge (e.g., with personal goals and general
expectations about the self and one’s life; Ernst & D’Argembeau, 2017). Indeed, future events that were associated with self-concordant goals were judged more important and more linked to other personal events, and were perceived as satisfying identity32Consciousness and Cognition 66 (2018) 26–39

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Table 3
Correlations between the future subscale of the BTPS and the phenomenological properties of episodic future thoughts associated with self-concordant and non-self-concordant goals.
BTPS – Future orientation
Self-concordantNon-self-concordant

r

p

r

p

Cognitive feelings
Belief in occurrence
Autonoetic experience

0.46
0.45

0.001*
0.002*

0.15
0.05

0.32
0.74

Sensory-perceptual characteristics
Vividness index
First-person perspective
Third-person perspective

0.28
0.24
0.08

0.06
0.86
0.58

0.19
0.13
-0.07

0.22
0.37
0.63

Autobiographical context
Personal importance
Link with other personal events
Personal Plausibility

0.55
0.12
0.32

< 0.001*
0.43
0.03

−0.04
−0.05
−0.03

0.79
0.76
0.83

Identity motives– Self-esteem– Distinctiveness– Continuity– Belonging– Eﬃcacy– Meaning

0.29
0.35
0.17
0.16
0.28
0.39

0.05
0.02
0.25
0.29
0.06
0.008*

−0.07
0.28
−0.12
−0.04
−0.002
−0.07

0.63
0.06
0.44
0.78
0.99
0.64

Psychological need satisfaction– Autonomy– Competence– Relatedness

0.13
0.04
0.04

0.38
0.80
0.77

0.03
−0.05
−0.08

0.87
0.72
0.62

Emotional characteristics
Emotional valence– Anticipatory– Anticipated

0.53
0.34

< 0.001*
0.21

−0.08
−0.12

0.61
0.43

Emotional intensity– Anticipatory– AnticipatedRehearsal
Easiness of imagining
Subjective temporal distance

0.37
0.29
0.32
0.49
−0.2

0.01*
0.05
0.03
0.001*
0.19

0.13
0.03
−0.07
0.28
−0.17

0.39
0.82
0.64
0.06
0.26

* Indicates diﬀerences that remained signiﬁcant after applying a correction for multiple comparisons using the Benjamini-Hochberg procedure(Benjamini & Hochberg, 1995).

motives (for self-esteem, distinctiveness, belonging, eﬃcacy, and meaning) to a greater extent than future events associated with nonself-concordant goals.3 This connection with autobiographical knowledge may contribute to the personal ownership of imagined
events (i.e., the appropriation of the content of experience to one’s self; Klein, 2015), such that the represented content is subjectively
perceived as referring to something happening in one’s personal future (D’Argembeau, 2016). The sense of realness of imagined
events may in turn increase motivation and guide actions to attain desired future states and avoid undesired ones, thereby contributing to the pragmatic aspects of prospection (Baumeister et al., 2016). In particular, goal self-concordance may increase thesubjective value of imagined events, which may foster self-control and ultimately promote goal achievement (Berkman, Livingston, &Kahn, 2017).
While goal self-concordance enhanced the feeling of pre-experiencing the future, it had little impact on the level of detail of
imagined scenarios: future events associated with self-concordant and non-self-concordant goals included similar amounts of internaland external details. On the other hand, the subjective vividness of mental representations was higher for self-concordant events.
Importantly, however, the inﬂuence of goal condition on cognitive feelings remained signiﬁcant when controlling for diﬀerences invividness. These ﬁndings indicate that the sense of realness of imagined events and the richness of mental representations are

3

Interestingly, however, the personal plausibility of imagined events (i.e., the judgment that an event has the potential to occur to the self;
Scoboria et al., 2004) did not diﬀer between the self-concordant and non-self-concordant goal conditions, with both types of future events being
judged as plausible. This ﬁnding supports the view that, although personal plausibility is typically an important determinant of belief in occurrence,the estimation that an event has the potential to occur to the self (personal plausibility) and the subjective feeling that this event will actually
happen in the future (belief in occurrence) are not entirely superimposable and can be dissociated under some circumstances (Ernst & D’Argembeau,2017).
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dissociable dimensions that can be diﬀerently inﬂuenced by experimental manipulations.4 More generally, these results are consistent
with the idea that scene or scenario construction (Cheng, Werning, & Suddendorf, 2016; Hassabis & Maguire, 2009) is a necessary but
insuﬃcient component of episodic future thinking; imagined events further have to be integrated with autobiographical knowledge,
which contextualizes mental simulations in the individual’s personal life (Conway, Justice, & D’Argembeau, in press; D’Argembeau,2015).
Interestingly, our manipulation of goal self-concordance inﬂuenced the emotional qualities of episodic future thoughts: future
thoughts derived from self-concordant goals were more positive and emotionally intense than future thoughts derived from non-selfconcordant goals. This modulation of aﬀective states associated with mental simulations of the future may have important implications for goal pursuit (Boyer, 2008; D’Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2007; Miloyan & Suddendorf, 2015). Emotions signal goalrelevant information (Ellsworth & Scherer, 2003) and guide decisions towards desired outcomes and away from undesired ones
(Bechara & Damasio, 2005). Thus, the experience of more intense and positive emotions when imagining self-concordant future
events may serve to guide and energize behavior in pursuing desired goal states. In the present study, goal self-concordance inﬂuenced both anticipated and anticipatory emotions, but the emotional intensity and positivity of self-concordant thoughts was higher
for anticipated than anticipatory emotions. This ﬁnding dovetails with the conclusion that the aﬀective features of self-concordant
future thoughts may serve to motivate and guide goal pursuit, insofar as anticipated emotions may impact behavior and judgment toa greater extent than anticipatory emotions (DeWall, Baumeister, Chester, & Bushman, 2016). Although the present study does not
speak directly to this issue, we note that these anticipated emotions may not necessarily be accurate (in the sense that they may notcorrespond to the emotional responses that would actually be experienced in the future). Indeed, people tend to display systematic
biases in predicting their aﬀective states, and notably often overestimate the emotional impact of future events (Gilbert & Wilson,2007). While such biases can sometimes have negative consequences (e.g., leading to poor decisions), they may confer motivational
beneﬁts (Levine, Lench, Karnaze, & Carlson, 2018; Miloyan & Suddendorf, 2015).
A number of other features of episodic future thoughts were also inﬂuenced by goal self-concordance. Consistent with previous
studies (Cole & Berntsen, 2016; D’Argembeau & Mathy, 2011; Jeunehomme & D’Argembeau, 2017), we found that future events
deriving from self-concordant goals were easier to imagine and had been previously thought/talked about to a greater extent thanfuture events associated with non-self-concordant goals. Furthermore, while the temporal location of imagined events was objectively
more distant in the self-concordant condition, subjective temporal distance was similar for the two types of events. Subjectively
reducing the temporal distance of future events that are associated with self-concordant goals may enhance goal pursuit motivation,
by giving the impression that goal achievement is close (Peetz, Wilson, & Strahan, 2009).
The second aim of this study was to examine psychological need satisfaction within episodic future thoughts. Extending previous
research on need satisfaction in autobiographical memories (Milyavskaya, Philippe, & Koestner, 2013; Philippe et al., 2011, 2012),
we found that need satisfaction was represented within episodic future thoughts and depended on the self-concordance of imagined
events: while future events associated with self-concordant goals fulﬁlled all three basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence
and relatedness), future events deriving from non-self-concordant goals were perceived as thwarting the need for autonomy andcompetence. This result is consistent with self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), which holds that actions pursed for autonomous reasons generally contribute to need satisfaction, whereas those pursued for controlled reasons have a negative impact onneed satisfaction. We also note that in this study episodic future thoughts were assessed in isolation of each other, but goal-relevant
events may in fact be represented in networks of episodic future thoughts (Demblon & D’Argembeau, 2016, 2017; see Philippe et al.,2012 for a study on the role of memory networks in need satisfaction and well-being).
A ﬁnal question addressed in this study was whether individual diﬀerences in the aﬀective and identity components of future time
perspective were related to the representation of self-concordant and non-self-concordant future events. Previous research has shownthat future time perspective inﬂuences emotion regulation (Barsics et al., 2017) and predicts the intensity of autonoetic experience
when imagining future events (Arnold, McDermott, & Szpunar, 2011). Here we found that individual diﬀerences in future time
perspective were related to multiple qualitative features of episodic future thoughts, but only when imagined events were derived
from self-concordant goals. Speciﬁcally, the general tendency to think positively about the future was associated with episodic future
thoughts that were easier to imagine and that involved higher belief in occurrence, autonoetic experience, personal importance andmeaning, and more positive and intense anticipatory emotions. Previous research has established that the motivational force of future
time perspective stems from the capacity to anticipate distant events and to ascribe value to future goals (for a recent review see
Andre, Van Vianen, Peetsma, & Oort, 2018). Although this issue remains to be investigated in detail, our results suggest that the
motivational impact of future time perspective may be particularly important when pursuing self-concordant goals. Future studies
should further investigate this issue, by examining for instance the impact of future time perspective on quantitative (i.e., amount ofenergy, eﬀort, or persistence) and qualitative (i.e., types of engagement) dimensions of goal pursuit (de Bilde, Vansteenkiste, & Lens,
2011; Simons, Vansteenkiste, Lens, & Lacante, 2004).

4
Our manipulation of goal self-concordance may have inﬂuenced other features of episodic future thoughts that were not measured here, such as
the familiarity of imagined elements (e.g., people). Previous studies have shown that the familiarity of imagined elements modulates the sensoryperceptual characteristics of episodic future thoughts, which in turn contribute to the sense of pre-experiencing the events (D’Argembeau & Van der
Linden, 2012). Thus, it remains possible that the two kinds of events investigated in the present study diﬀered in familiarity, which could in part
account for the observed diﬀerences in the vividness of episodic future thoughts. However, as noted above, our results showed that the inﬂuence ofgoal condition on cognitive feelings remained signiﬁcant when controlling for diﬀerences in vividness. Thus, it is unlikely that the higher sense of“realness” of self-concordant thoughts can be simply explained by diﬀerences in the familiarity of imagined components.

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In conclusion, the present study reﬁnes our understanding of the role of goal processing in episodic future thought by showingthat all personal goals are not equal. Future event representations related to goals that one wants to achieve have a privileged status
regarding phenomenological dimensions lying at the heart of episodic future thought. Our ﬁndings thus provide empirical support tothe view that prospection is fundamentally pragmatic and serves to guide actions to bring about desired future states (Baumeister
et al., 2016). As such, this study may pave the way for future research aiming to better understand the adaptive function of episodic
future thought in goal pursuit. For example, it would be important to investigate whether mental representations of self-concordant
events predict the actual happening of envisioned future situations (see Spreng & Levine, 2013, for evidence that most episodic future
thoughts refer to events that eventually occur), which could be mediated by motivational factors. Another question that deserves
further study is whether goal self-concordance has a similar inﬂuence on future event representations that correspond to processsimulations (i.e., steps to take toward goal achievement) versus outcome simulations (i.e., goal attainment). This is an importantquestion as previous studies have shown that merely focusing and fantasizing on desired outcomes without considering potential
obstacles can have negative consequences for goal attainment (Oettingen & Cachia, 2016; Oettingen & Reininger, 2016). Finally,another critical issue would be to examine whether one can enhance the goal self-concordance of imagined future events, for instanceby elaborating on the integration of these events with autobiographical knowledge. This would complete the array of cognitivetechniques used to promote goal self-concordance (e.g., reﬂecting on the intrinsic values, sense of ownership or aﬀective values ofgoals; Job & Brandstätter, 2009; Lekes, Hope, Gouveia, Koestner, & Philippe, 2012; Sheldon, Kasser, Smith, & Share, 2002). Examining the relative inﬂuence of techniques that tap into diﬀerent levels of representations (e.g., abstracted goals versus speciﬁc
future event representations) may further our understanding of the complex interactions between motivation, goals, event representations, and the self (Dweck, 2017). Studies along this line may also beneﬁt applied research in domains where goal selfconcordance is a major determinant of goal success and well-being, such as education (Gaudreau, 2012; Vasalampi, Salmela-Aro, &Nurmi, 2009), work (Bono & Judge, 2003; Judge, Erez, Bono, & Locke, 2005), and psychotherapeutic interventions (Michalak &Holtforth, 2006; Michalak, Püschel, Joormann, & Schulte, 2006).
Acknowledgements
A. E is a Marie Curie COFUND postdoctoral fellow supported by a research grant from the European Union and the University ofLiege, Belgium. A. D is Senior Research Associate of the Fonds de la Recherche Scientiﬁque (F.R.S.-FNRS), Belgium. We thank Nadia
Waxin for her help with data collection.
Appendix A. Rating scales used to assess the phenomenological characteristics of episodic future thoughts associated with
self-concordant and non-self-concordant goals
Items were administered in French (the English translation of each item is indicated in square brackets).
Belief in occurrence
1. En imaginant cet événement, j’ai le sentiment qu’il va réellement avoir lieu (1 = pas du tout, 7 = très fortement)[While imagining this event, I feel that it will actually occur (1 = not at all, 7 = very strongly)]
Autonoetic experience
2. En imaginant cet événement, j’ai le sentiment de vivre l’événement comme si j’y étais (1 = pas du tout, 7 = très fortement)[While imagining this event, I feel that I am experiencing the situation, as if I was there (1 = not at all, 7 = very strongly)]
3. En imaginant cet événement, j’ai l’impression d’aller dans le futur et de me trouver au moment où cet événement se produira(1 = pas du tout, 7 = très fortement)[While imagining this event, I feel that I travel forward in time and that I am right at the moment when this event will happen(1 = not at all, 7 = absolutely)]
Overall clarity
4. Ma représentation de cet événement est claire/détaillée : (1 = pas du tout claire, 7 = extrêmement claire)[My representation of this event is clear/detailed: (1 = not at all clear, 7 = extremely clear)]Sensory details
5. Ma représentation de cet événement comporte des détails sensoriels (je peux voir, entendre ou percevoir ce qui va se passer)(1 = pas du tout, 7 = énormément)[My representation of this event contains sensory details (I can see, hear or perceive what will happen) (1 = not at all, 7 = a lot)]First-person perspective
6. Lorsque j’imagine cet événement, je le vois à travers mes propres yeux : (1 = pas du tout, 7 = complètement)[While imagining this event, I see it through my own eyes. (1 = not at all, 7 = completely)]
Third-person perspective
7. Lorsque j’imagine cet événement, je le vois comme un observateur extérieur : (1 = pas du tout, 7 = complètement)[While imagining this event, I see it as if I was an external observer (1 = not at all, 7 = completely)]
Personal importance
8. Cet événement est un moment important pour moi, par rapport à mes buts, mes valeurs, etc. (1 = pas du tout important, 7 = très
important)[This event is important to me, in relation to my goals, my values, etc. (1 = not at all important, 7 = very important)]
Link with other personal events
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9. Lorsque j’ai imaginé cet événement, j’ai également pensé à d’autres événements (des évènements que j’ai vécus dans le passé oud’autres événements que je pourrais vivre dans l’avenir) (1 = pas du tout, 7 = très fortement)[As I imagined this event, I also thought about other events (some events that I experienced in the past or other events that I mightexperience in the future). (1 = not at all, 7 = very strongly)]
Personal plausibility
10. Dans quelle mesure est-il plausible que vous, personnellement, serez amené à vivre cet événement ? (1 = pas du tout plausible,
7 = très plausible)[How plausible is it that you, personally, would experience this event? (1 = not at all plausible, 7 = extremely plausible)]
Identity motives
11. Dans quelle mesure cet événement vous donne un sentiment:• De continuité entre votre vie passée, présente et future ? (1 = pas du tout, 7 = énormément)• D’estime de vous-même ? (1 = pas du tout, 7 = énormément)• D’être diﬀérent(e) des autres personnes ? (1 = pas du tout, 7 = énormément)• De donner un sens à votre vie ? (1 = pas du tout, 7 = énormément)• De vous sentir eﬃcace et compétent(e) dans ce que vous faites ? (1 = pas du tout, 7 = énormément)• De vous sentir proche des autres ? (1 = pas du tout, 7 = énormément)[To what extent does this event give you a sense:• Of continuity between past, present and future in your life? (1 = not at all, 7 = a lot)
• Of self-esteem? (1 = not at all, 7 = a lot)
• Of being distinct from other people? (1 = not at all, 7 = a lot)
• Of meaning in your life? (1 = not at all, 7 = a lot)
• Of competence and eﬃcacy? (1 = not at all, 7 = a lot)
• Of feeling close to other people? (1 = not at all, 7 = a lot)]
Psychological need satisfaction – Autonomy
12. Dans cet événement futur, je me sens libre d'agir et de penser comme je le veux. (−3 = pas du tout d’accord, 0 = ni en accord,ni en désaccord/non applicable, +3 = tout à fait d’accord)[In this future event, I feel free to do things and to think how I want. (−3 = strongly disagree, 0 = do not agree nor disagree/not
applicable, +3 = strongly agree)]13. Dans cet événement futur, je me sens obligé(e) de faire ou de penser certaines choses. (−3 = pas du tout d’accord, 0 = ni en
accord, ni en désaccord/non applicable, +3 = tout à fait d’accord)[In this future event, I feel obliged to do things or think some things. (−3 = strongly disagree, 0 = do not agree nor disagree/not
applicable, +3 = strongly agree)]
Psychological need satisfaction – Competence
14. Dans cet événement futur, je me sens conﬁant(e) de moi-même. (−3 = pas du tout d’accord, 0 = ni en accord, ni en désaccord/
non applicable, +3 = tout à fait d’accord)[In this future event, I feel self-conﬁdent. (−3 = strongly disagree, 0 = do not agree nor disagree/not applicable, +3 = strongly
agree)]
15. Dans cet événement futur, je me sens compétent(e) ou à la hauteur. (−3 = pas du tout d’accord, 0 = ni en accord, ni endésaccord/non applicable, +3 = tout à fait d’accord)[In this future event, I feel skillful or capable. (−3 = strongly disagree, 0 = do not agree nor disagree/not applicable, +3 = strongly
agree)]
Psychological need satisfaction – Relatedness
16. Dans cet événement futur, je me sens lié(e) à une ou plusieurs personnes. (−3 = pas du tout d’accord, 0 = ni en accord, ni endésaccord/non applicable, +3 = tout à fait d’accord)[In this future event, I feel connected to one or more people. (−3 = strongly disagree, 0 = do not agree nor disagree/not applicable,+3 = strongly agree)]
17. Dans cet événement futur, je me sens apprécié(e) ou aimé(e) par une ou plusieurs personnes. (−3 = pas du tout d’accord,
0 = ni en accord, ni en désaccord/non applicable, +3 = tout à fait d’accord)[In this future event, I feel appreciated or loved by one or more people. (−3 = strongly disagree, 0 = do not agree nor disagree/not
applicable, +3 = strongly agree)]Emotional valence
18. L’émotion ressentie au moment où j’ai imaginé cet événement (c’est-à-dire à l’instant, lorsque vous l’avez l’évoqué) est :(−3 = très négative, 0 = pas d’émotion, +3 = très positive)[The emotion I feel while imagining this event (that is, right now, when you have evoked it) is: (−3 = very negative, 0 = noemotion, +3 = very positive)]
19. Si cet événement se produisait, j’aurais une émotion (émotion attendue) : (−3 = très négative, 0 = pas d’émotion, +3 = très
positive)36

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[If this event happens, my emotion would be (anticipated emotion): (−3 = very negative, 0 = no emotion, +3 = very positive)]
Emotional intensity
20. L’émotion ressentie au moment où j’ai imaginé cet événement (c’est-à-dire à l’instant, lorsque vous l’avez l’évoqué) est :(1 = pas du tout intense, 7 = très intense)[The emotion I feel while imagining this event (that is, right now, when you have evoked it) is: (1 = not at all intense, 7 = very
intense)]21. Si cet événement se produisait, j’aurais une émotion (émotion attendue): (1 = pas du tout intense, 7 = très intense)[If this event happens, my emotion would be (anticipated emotion): (1 = not at all intense, 7 = very intense)]
Rehearsal
22. Avant de l’évoquer aujourd’hui, j’ai déjà pensé ou parlé de cet événement (1 = jamais, 7 = très souvent)[Before evoking it today, I already thought or talked about this event (1 = never, 7 = very often)]
Easiness of imagining
23. Imaginer cet événement était : (1 = très diﬃcile, 7 = très facile)[Imagining this events was: (1 = very diﬃcult, 7 = very easy)]
Subjective temporal distance
24. Les événements que nous imaginons peuvent nous sembler plus ou moins proches dans le temps (comme s’ils allaient se
produire bientôt ou au contraire dans longtemps), indépendamment du moment où ils vont se produire. Quel est votre sentimentsubjectif de proximité par rapport à cet événement ? (1 = très proche, 7 = très éloigné)[Sometimes events that we imagine feel more or less close in time (as if they will happen soon or, on the contrary, in a long time),
regardless of when events will actually happen. How close does the event feel to you? (1 = very close, 7 = very distant)]
Appendix B. Examples of self-concordant and non-self-concordant goals and associated future events
Self-concordant goals• Travelling, visiting every continent
Associated future event: Discovery of Vietnamese cooking during a cooking lesson• Being able to play Chopin’s “Grande Valse Brillante” at the piano
Associated future event: A meeting with my former piano professor• Having children
Associated future event: The appointment with the gynecologist to conﬁrm that I am pregnant• Becoming a veterinarian in a national park in the Amazon rainforest
Associated future event: Diving in the Amazon• Starting running again
Associated future event: The ﬁrst time I redo the easiest running routeNon-self-concordant goals• Staying in touch with my Portuguese family
Associated future event: Going to D.’s wedding• Getting a secure job
Associated future event: The job interview• Finishing university studies
Associated future event: The graduation ceremony• Improving my English skills
Associated future event: My PhD defense in the United States• Overcoming my phobia of ﬁre
Associated future event: The ﬁrst open ﬁre of the winter

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