Parsing Age Effects in Future Self-Continuity through Goal Orientation and Life Satisfaction
Laken Mooney, Ryan Best

TL;DR
This study explores how age affects future self-continuity through factors like goal orientation and life satisfaction.
Contribution
The study introduces a parallel mediation model to explain age-related changes in future self-continuity.
Findings
Age significantly predicts future self-continuity after controlling for various factors.
Gain-oriented goal orientation and life satisfaction mediate the age-FSC relationship.
Increased life satisfaction with age boosts future self-continuity.
Abstract
Future self-continuity (FSC), the feeling of connectedness between the current and the future self, has been shown to predict positive outcomes such as dieting and the likelihood of saving for retirement. Limited additional work has investigated the trajectory of FSC across adulthood, generally finding that FSC increases with age. Possible mechanisms considered in this work such as future time perspective, cognition, personality, and health were not found to account for the observed age effects in multiple regression models. The current study builds on this earlier work by using a parallel mediation model to test if age related differences in goal orientation and life satisfaction may account for age-related increases in FSC. An online sample of American adult participants (n = 479) was collected from Prolific. Using a hierarchical regression model, previous findings were replicated…
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Taxonomy
TopicsPsychological and Temporal Perspectives Research · Aging and Gerontology Research · Identity, Memory, and Therapy
