The Role of Dyadic Interactions in Personal and Collective Future Thinking

Research on future thinking has focused on both personal future thinking about one’s own life and collective future thinking about the fate of the world. A recent study has revealed a dissociation between the two types of future thoughts, specifically a positivity bias in personal future thoughts and a negativity bias in collective future thoughts (Shrikanth et al., 2018). I recently conducted a pilot study exploring processes that can facilitate this dissociation, specifically the role of dyadic interactions. The pilot experiments revealed that the negativity bias in collective future thinking can be exaggerated when people discuss the country’s future with each other. The current study sought to replicate this finding, as well as exploring how dyadic interactions impact the emotional content of personal future thinking. 108 participants were asked to talk about the collective future of the United States and their personal future either with a partner or on their own. The results were consistent with the pilot experiments and supported that paired participants had an exaggerated negative bias in their collective future thoughts compared to individuals. Contrary to past studies on collaborative recall of autobiographical memory, impression management, discomfort of sharing negatives, and mutual reinforcement, I did not find a positive bias in the personal future thoughts of pairs or individuals.