A new empirical framework to measure beliefs about the future well‐being of all humanity

Many important decisions that people are faced with hold consequences for future generations of humans on Earth. However, it is currently not well understood how people think about the future of all humans on Earth. This study was designed to explore the way people think about the past and future of all of humanity. We investigate people's beliefs about the past and future of all humanity (1000 years) as compared to people's beliefs about the remembered past and predicted future of their own lives (10 years). We found that the trajectory of quality of life is dissociable according to humanity vs individual levels, and that beliefs about the past and future of all humanity are linked to several personality and dispositional traits (neuroticism, conscientiousness, optimism and time orientation) and values/attitudes (current life satisfaction, science and technology and system justification). These findings provide a useful framework to further investigate how people think about the future of all humanity and shed new light on potential correlates to the way the future of humanity is imagined.