Training preschoolers' prospective abilities through conversation about the extended self

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• The ability to act for one's future self, crucial for planning and goal attainment, develops rapidly in early childhood.
• Mechanisms supporting the development of prospection, or future-oriented thinking, remain largely unknown.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if encouraging children to discuss their extended selves (self outside the present context) enhances their prospective abilities.
• To explore the impact of discussing temporally contiguous past and future events on children's planning and self-projection.

Main Methods:

• Eighty-one preschoolers participated in a 5-minute interaction.
• Children were prompted to discuss events from their near future, distant future, near past, or present.
• Measures included planning, prospective memory, and self-projection (elicited through personal pronoun use).

Main Results:

• Children discussing near future or near past events showed improved planning and prospective memory compared to those discussing the present or distant future.
• Discussions about the near future and near past were most effective in eliciting self-projection.
• These findings suggest a link between discussing the temporally contiguous extended self and enhanced future-oriented cognition.

Conclusions:

• Communicating about the temporally contiguous, extended self may foster the development of future-oriented thinking in young children.
• Targeted conversations about the near past and near future can be a strategy to bolster children's planning and prospective memory skills.