Episodic future thinking reduces temporal discounting in healthy adolescents

Uli Bromberg; Maria Lobatcheva; Jan Peters

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0188079

Episodic future thinking reduces temporal discounting in healthy adolescents

PLoS One. 2017 Nov 22;12(11):e0188079. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0188079. eCollection 2017.

Authors

Uli Bromberg¹, Maria Lobatcheva¹, Jan Peters^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Systems Neuroscience, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
² Department of Biological Psychology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.

Abstract

Episodic Future Thinking has proven efficient in reducing impulsive behavior in several adult populations. Whether it also has a beneficial impact on decision making in adolescents is not known. Here the impact of episodic future thinking on discounting behavior was investigated in a sample of healthy adolescents (n = 44, age range 13-16 years). Discounting behavior in trials including episodic future thinking was significantly less impulsive than in control trials (t = 2.74, p = .009, dz = .44). In a subsample we controlled for executive function, alcohol use and developmental measures. Neither executive function nor alcohol use but developmental measures explained variability in the effect of episodic future thinking. These findings reveal that episodic future thinking can improve adolescent decision making while the effect is to some degree modulated by developmental measures.

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Delay Discounting
Female
Health*
Humans
Male
Memory, Episodic*
Regression Analysis
Task Performance and Analysis
Thinking*
Time Factors

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Grant Number: PE1627/3-1 and PE1627/5-1 to Prof. Dr. Jan Peters. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.