Imagining possible selves across time: Characteristics of self-images and episodic thoughts

•People can reliably distinguish temporally near and distant selves.•Episodic Future Thinking qualities were reliably affected by future selves.•Observer perspectives are associated with distant future selves.•Distant future selves are more role (vs. attribute) based than near selves.

Thinking about our possible selves can entail thinking about self-related imagined future events. When remembering and imagining, individuals can use both 1st person (field) and 3rd person (observer) perspectives. There is currently a paucity of research examining the visual perspectives of episodic future thoughts that represent possible selves. We hypothesised that temporally distant self-images would elicit more observer perspectives in episodic thoughts than temporally near self-images and current self-images. Utilising a repeated measures design, sixty-eight undergraduate students completed IAM, I Will Be near and I Will Be far conditions (Rathbone, Conway, & Moulin, 2011) to generate self-images and their related episodic thoughts. It was found that episodic qualities were reliably affected by different self-images. Specifically, observer perspective predilections increased with future temporal distance. Findings are discussed in relation to self-continuity with recommended practical applications of visual perspective utilisation for wellbeing.