ArticleApplied psychology. Health and well-being2022
Episodic future thinking and anticipatory emotions: Effects on delay discounting and preventive behaviors during COVID-19.
Article in Applied psychology. Health and well-being, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A multinational analysis of how emotions relate to economic decisions regarding time or risk.Nature human behaviour · 2024Pooled it
- Intertemporal meditation regulates time perception and emotions: an exploratory fNIRS study.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Course of well-being and mental health in Switzerland during the COVID-19 pandemic: results of a national survey within the framework of the COH-FIT study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Editorial: Neuropsychology of human social decision-making: the role of emotions.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
- Neurophysiological correlates of interpersonal discrepancy and social adjustment in an interactive decision-making task in dyads.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- A mini-review on how the COVID-19 pandemic affected intertemporal choice.Psychoradiology · 2023Review
- Episodic future thinking and anticipatory emotions: Effects on delay discounting and preventive behaviors during COVID-19.Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2022Article
- Delay discounting of money and health outcomes, and adherence to policy guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
We examined the effects of anticipatory emotions induced by episodic future thinking on the basic decision-process of delay discounting and preventive behaviors during the most stringent COVID-19 "lockdown" period in China. We define anticipatory emotions as any discrete emotions induced from anticipating decision outcomes and felt during decision-making. In an online study conducted with healthy volunteers, anticipatory emotions were induced and appraised by asking participants to rate various emotions they feel when thinking they may be infected by COVID-19 (N = 246). The participants in the control group reported their present emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic (N = 245). Compared with the control group, the participants in the anticipatory emotion group had a higher future-oriented preference for monetary rewards, with a significantly lower delay discounting rate. These participants also had a higher intention to engage in proactive, preventive behaviors. The likelihood estimate of being infected by COVID-19 mediated these effects. Moreover, anticipatory disgust increased the preference for larger-and-later rewards. Anticipatory emotions induced by future thinking guide fast and rational decision-making in a health crisis.
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