Future-Mindedness Glossary At-Risk Population: segments of students/youth who are less likely to transition successfully into adulthood and achieve economic self-sufficiency, with characteristics that may include behavior problems, truancy, or lack of interest towards academics (Koball, et al., 2011). Academic Self-Concept: how a students perceive and view themselves within a school context, with reference to their abilities, performance, and social integration (Schonert-Reichl & Lawlor, 2010). Agency: a capability or belief that one can cause things to happen, particularly desirable things they have in mind (Osman, 2014). Agency Thinking: the requisite motivations to use routes to desired goals - contrasted with pathways thinking (Snyder & Lopez, 2007). Anticipated Life History: a longitudinal study technique that examines the comparative ways that youth imagine their future lives from various points in the sequential developmental phases of their lives. (Segal, et al., 2001). Concepts of Time: learning about a person s concept of time is an important part of understanding how they think, why they behave as they do, and how their society functions, so this is a natural as well as entertaining component of normal social studies and history courses (Kauffman, 1976). Contingency Detection: a system of cognitive processes that evaluates internal end external perceptual signals, in order to estimate causes, patterns, likelihoods and predictions that accompany one s planning (Osman, 2014). Contingency Learning: the ability to detect patterns and interpret their structural relationships that helps us understand future events (Osman, 2014). Control: planning and deciding which actions will achieve desirable outcomes and help us avoid negative ones. (Osman, 2014).
Curiosity: recognizing, seeking out, and showing a preference for the new can also be conceived as the intersection of interest and motivation. (Lopez & Snyder, 2009). Delayed Gratification: the ability to resist the temptation for an immediate reward, and to wait for a later (but greater) reward; a sign of developmental maturation in positive psychology and psychology generally (Mischel, et al., 1992). Emotional Competence: the ability to express inner feelings or release them in healthy, adaptive, ways; considered an essential social skill in recognizing, interpreting, and responding constructively to others and one s own emotions (Schonert-Reichl & Lawlor, 2010). Forecasting: the practice of using all available information and impressions to make statements about future possibilities, with a built-in presumption of varying degrees of probability; contrasted with prediction, which is a claim that something will occur with 100% certainty (Kauffman, 1976). Future Orientation: a perspective in which one emphasizes future events and the consequences of one s actions, Future-oriented people focus on planning for things to come (Snyder & Lopez, 2007). Generalized Event Representation (GER): a five level process that builds on children s event knowledge and proceeds from young children use of their knowledge about events to creating a sequence of activities related to sub-goals in familiar and novel situations (Seginer, 2009). Goals: expected future outcomes that we construct by drawing on past experience and combining that with our present desires and efficacy (Osman, 152). Hope: goal-directed thinking in which a person has the perceived capacity to find routes to desired goals (pathways thinking) and the requisite motivations to use those routes (agency thinking). Hope is not genetically determined but an entirely learned, deliberate way of thinking (Snyder, 1994). Hope Theory: developed by C. R. Snyder throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Hope Theory views hope dynamically as a reflection of individuals perceptions of their capacity to 1) clearly conceptualize goals; 2) develop the specific strategies to reach those goals (pathways thinking); and 3) initiate and sustain the motivation for using those specific strategies (agency thinking). (Linley & Joseph, 2004). Hopeful Narratives: a hope-increasing technique, largely pioneered by McDermott and Hastings, involving the hearing or writing of stories by children, designed to generate imagination and curiosity toward solutions to the stories obstacles or more hope-filled endings in which the stories could culminate (Seligman, 2004).
If/Then Simulations: the conditional statements that form the cognitive content of prospection, and simulation occurs as a means of future evaluation, in Seligman s theoretical view, but distinct from Osman s view who does not see contingencies something to be simulated, but rather detected and rationalized towards reasonable predictions (Seligman, Railton, Baumeister, & Sripada, 2013). Imaginative Planning: often associated with Possible Selves, the creative consideration of scenarios, solutions, and selves that involve reality states that do not yet exist or that the participant has had limited exposure. (Shepard & Marshall, 1999). Learned Optimism: characteristic use of a flexible explanatory style in which one has learned to make external (outside oneself), variable (not consistent), and specific (limited to a specific situation) attributions for one s failures. In contrast, pessimists have learned to look at failures as due to internal (characteristic of the self), stable (consistent), and global (not limited to a specific situation) attributions (Snyder & Lopez, 2007). Motivation: that which prompts behavior, giving reason to act in a certain way (Maehr & Mayer, 1997). Motivational Induction Method: a methodology that studies time perspective and analyzes the content of motivational aspirations of different groups of subjects in different experimental or clinical conditions. (Nuttin, 1980). Optimism: the cognitive-generated expectancy that good things rather than bad will happen, or that improvement will occur rather than decline. It is a stable trait in some people and is independent of self-efficacy (Scheier & Carver, 1985). Pathways Thinking: the perceived capacity to find routes to desired goals - contrasted with agency thinking (Snyder & Lopez, 2007). Past Orientation: a perspective in which one emphasizes past occurrences, pleasurable experiences, or previous relationships when thinking about time (Snyder & Lopez, 2007). Present orientation: a perspective in which one emphasizes the here and now, looking to the present to experience pleasure and satisfy needs (Snyder & Lopez, 2007). Prospection: the mental representation and evaluation of possible futures, which may include planning, prediction, hypothetical scenarios, teleological patterns, daydreaming, or evaluative assessment of possible future events (Schulman, Riffle, & Wheatley, 2015). Prospection Pipeline: the path we take from thinking about the future to developing and executing the plans that make that future a reality (Lopez, 2014).
Possible (Future) Selves: any arrangements of: the self that one would like to become, the self that one might become, and/or the self the self is afraid of becoming. This is a popularized form of self-conception, which refers to the self in future states (Dunkel & Kerpelman, 2006). Pygmalion Effect Rosenthal Effect : a theory teaching that people will act or behave in the way that others expect them to; very similar to the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy. (Zimbardo & Boyd, 2009). Self-Authorship: an intentional, ideological method for constructing personal identity, which coordinates and integrates values, beliefs, convictions, ideals, abstractions, and interpersonal loyalties. It involves the three key elements of 1) trusting the internal voice, 2) building an internal foundation, and 3) securing internal commitments (Baxter Magolda, 2012). Self-Concept: the whole constructed by one s elemental self-schema, incorporating self-esteem and self-knowledge, as well as the social self, and iterations of one s self-view from the past, present, and future imagined selves (Markus & Nurius, 1986). Self-Determination: a key component of human motivation and personality that concerns one s inherent growth tendencies and innate psychological needs. It is delineated from other forms of motivation by considering only the motivation behind choices people make without any external influence or interference (Deci & Ryan, 2002). Self-Efficacy: the extent of one s belief in one s own ability to complete a task or achieve certain goals (Ormrod, 2006). Self-Motivation: pursuing one s goals for one s own purposes, without reference to any value placed on said goals by someone else; indicative of preference for intrinsic rewards, such as the expansion of one s personal knowledge (Graham, 2007). Self-Schema: constructed creatively and selectively from an individual s past experiences in a given domain, these self-referential frameworks for understanding reflect personal concerns of enduring salience and investment, and have been shown to have a systematic and pervasive influence on how information about the self is processed (Markus & Nurius, 1986). Situational Perspective: a view of psychological concepts as situationally, or context, specific; that is, that the specific setting influences how a psychological phenomenon is manifested. As the situation varies, the concept varies in turn (Snyder & Lopez, 2007). Social Cognitive Theory: a theory suggesting that one s self-efficacy (confidence in their abilities) influences their actions and thoughts in such as way that they shape their environments. For example, a child who thinks she might be good at basketball tries out for the team. Trying out for the basketball team, in turn, gives the child opportunities to develop her
skills and gain confidence in her abilities. Then the child thinks more positively about her ability to do a variety of sports. Therefore, the child s beliefs influenced the type of environment in which she pursued goals (Snyder & Lopez, 2007). Time Perspectives: (all from Zimbardo & Boyd, 1999) Past-Positive time perspective: typified by a glowing, nostalgic, positive construction of the past, amount to high correlations with happiness and self-esteem, but not with novelty seeking, sensation seeking, or preferences for consistency. Past-Negative time perspective: embodies a pessimistic, negative, or aversive attitude towards the past, and the negative rumination of this perspective type can lead to depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. Present-Hedonistic time perspective: characterized by an orientation toward present enjoyment, pleasure, and excitement, without sacrifices today for rewards tomorrow. Present-Fatalistic time perspective: reveals a belief that the future is predetermined and uninfluenced by individual action, whereas the present must be borne with resignation, and as such this type also correlates highly with depression and anxiety. Future time perspective: characterized by planning for and achievement of future goals. This perspective correlates highly with conscientiousness, consideration of consequences, preference for consistency, and propensity to spend more time studying/working.