Future-Directed Thinking and Its Relationship to Subjective Well-Being in Older Adults

Abstract

Age-related changes in future-directed thinking may be important for well-being. Older and younger adults generated idiographic anticipated experiences for the next week, the next year, and the next 5–10 years, using an adapted fluency measure. Relative to younger adults, older adults maintained a focus on the immediate future but frequency of anticipated events declined for the medium and longer term. The presence of negative thoughts for those two more distant time periods was related to lower life satisfaction in older adults. Content differences in thoughts illustrated the differing concerns of the two groups. The results align broadly with previous findings in the literature on socioemotional selectivity theory.