A Mental Imagery Intervention to Increase Future Self‐Continuity and Reduce Procrastination

This research examined how mental imagery practice can increase future self‐continuity to reduce procrastination. A total of 193 undergraduate students were randomly assigned to a present‐focused meditation or to a future self‐focused mental imagery condition. Participants in both conditions were asked to listen to their respective audio recording twice per week for four consecutive weeks and to complete a pre‐intervention, half‐point, and post‐intervention questionnaire. At the four‐week mark, hierarchical regression analyses revealed that both future self‐continuity and empathic perspective taking were significantly higher for the mental imagery condition than the meditation condition. While vividness of future self moderated change in future self‐continuity, affective empathy for future self mediated the relation between vividness of future self and future self‐continuity. Lastly, only empathic perspective taking was a significant moderator of change in procrastination across time. The influence of empathy and future self‐continuity on procrastination is discussed.