Distant determination and near determinism: The role of temporal distance in prospective attributions to will

Mental Time Travel as Self-Affirmation

ACADEMIC ABSTRACT

This article integrates and advances the scope of research on the role of mental time travel in bolstering the self. We propose that imagining the self in the future (prospection) or in the past (retrospection) highlights central and positive self-aspects. Thus, bringing to mind one's future or past broadens the perceived bases of self-integrity and offers a route to self-affirmation. In reviewing corresponding research programs on self-prospection and nostalgia, we illustrate that mental time travel serves to affirm the self in terms of self-esteem, coherence, and control. Mental time travel could be implemented as a source of self-affirmation for facilitating coping and behavior change in several domains such as relationships, health, education, and organizational contexts.

PUBLIC ABSTRACT

People can mentally travel to their future or to their past. When people imagine what they will be like in the future, or what they were like in the past, they tend to think about themselves in terms of the important and positive attributes that they possess. Thinking about themselves in such an affirming way expands and consolidates their self-views. This broader image of themselves can increase self-esteem (the extent to which one likes who they are), coherence (the extent to which one perceives life as meaningful), and control (the extent to which one feels capable of initiating and pursuing goals or effecting desirable outcomes). Mental time travel, then, has favorable or affirming consequences for one's self-views. These consequences can be harnessed to modify one's behavior in such life domains as relationships, health, education, and work.

A Three-Step Reliability Strategy Applied to Police-Worn Body Camera Footage

Strong inferences are drawn from police-worn body camera (BWC) footage, frequently without an assessment of reliability. Unique characteristics of BWC footage (i.e., capturing trends and less frequent behavior, a focal actor (officer) is absent) suggest a specific reliability strategy. A three-step strategy of selecting appropriate reliability indexes, providing salient reliability categories, and ranking the reliability categories was applied to BWC footage. Five interrater agreement ( $\text{A}{\text{C}}_1$ , ${\widehat{\alpha }}_K$ , $B-P$ coefficient, $r_{\text{wg}}$ , $\text{ad}.\text{m}$ ), two interrater consistency $\left(\text{ICC}\left(1,1\right),\text{ICC}\left(2,1\right)\right)$ , and three internal consistency ( ${\omega }_t$ , ${\omega }_h$ , $\text{GLB}$ ) indexes were applied to police BWC footage. A focus was to ascertain the upper limits of reliability for BWC footage. Item development and rater training were conducted to optimize rating reliability. Using a within design and confidence intervals, the relatively stronger and weaker reliabilities across the six domains of video completeness, respect (passive, active, discourse), threats, and behavioral stance were assessed. Applied to the admissibility of court evidence, central aspects of video completeness have relatively stronger reliabilities. For research, lower reliabilities have a cost of limited generalizability and ecological validity. Policy recommendations include the usage of a standardized scale with multiple ratings to determine what information should be used in high-stake decision-making based on BWC footage. The three-step strategy integrated the reliability indexes into a single figure to reflect a reliability summary of each component of BWC footage. Weighted rankings found the Overall Audio Quality (-4.9) and Empathy (-4.9) items to have the weakest reliabilities and the Clarification (5.1) and Physical Resistance (4.9) items to have the strongest reliabilities.

Risk assessment tool floundering? Let's ask the client to self-predict

Self-prediction by criminal justice involved clients has not been typically implemented in risk assessment procedures, yet clients have unique self-knowledge that may add to the assessment of risk. The Transition Inventory is an eight scale self-prediction measure that addresses areas that are a precursor to antisocial and criminal activity (e.g., "Drugs or alcohol will be a problem for me"). The Transition Inventory was administered to 131 paroled clients (primary drug-related offenses), 104 of whom were of minority/ethnic status. Predictive validity was demonstrated by the Transition Inventory incrementally predicting supervision failure. Individual scale construct validity was demonstrated by predicting later assessed corresponding measures, with the Leisure scale having the most robust predictive relationship. Self-prediction may promote greater predictability and stronger client engagement in the assessment process.

Restoring meaning in life by meaning-focused coping: The role of self-distancing

Meaning-focused coping is an important coping strategy in the face of stressful life events. The "construal level theory" and recent research suggest that reflecting on a stressful situation from a self-distanced stance (temporal or spatial) allows individuals to find meaning in negative life events; however, its long-term effects have not yet been explored. The present research had two main goals: (1) to determine whether distanced meaning making enhances meaning in life and (2) to explore the underlying emotional mechanism of this effect. We hypothesized that positive affect (relative to negative affect) may play a more important role in the relationship between self-distanced meaning making and meaning in life. A total of 136 university students were recruited as participants in two studies. The participants were prospectively instructed to make meaning of a highly stressful event. They were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (a) self-immersed, (b) temporally distanced, or (c) spatially distanced. The findings indicate that both the temporally and spatially distanced perspectives in the meaning-making process can enhance meaning in life and that they do so by promoting positive affect. Implications for future research on meaning-focused coping and self-distancing are discussed.