Episodic foresight and anxiety: Proximate and ultimate perspectives

The British Journal of Clinical Psychology
Beyon MiloyanThomas Suddendorf

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the relationship between episodic foresight and anxiety from an evolutionary perspective, proposing that together they confer an advantage for modifying present moment decision-making and behaviour in the light of potential future threats to fitness. We review the body of literature on the role of episodic foresight in anxiety, from both proximate and ultimate perspectives. We propose that anxious feelings associated with episodic simulation of possible threat-related future events serve to imbue these simulations with motivational currency. Episodic and semantic details of a future threat may be insufficient for motivating its avoidance, but anxiety associated with a simulation can provoke adaptive threat management. As such, we detail how anxiety triggered by a self-generated, threat-related future simulation prepares the individual to manage that threat (in terms of its likelihood and/or consequences) over greater temporal distances than observed in other animals. We then outline how anxiety subtypes may represent specific mechanisms for predicting and managing particular classes of fitness threats. This approach offers an inroad for understanding the nature of characteristic future thinking pattern...Continue Reading

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Citations

Feb 6, 2017·Consciousness and Cognition·Adam BulleyThomas Suddendorf
Jun 3, 2018·Reviews in the Neurosciences·Ahmed A MoustafaMohamad ElHaj
Aug 3, 2019·Perspectives on Psychological Science : a Journal of the Association for Psychological Science·Beau GambleDonna Rose Addis
Apr 25, 2018·Health and Quality of Life Outcomes·C BotellaJ M Tomás
Mar 20, 2019·Nature Human Behaviour·Nichola J Raihani, Vaughan Bell
Feb 6, 2020·Psychological Reports·Janie Busby Grant, Neil Wilson
Nov 7, 2019·Frontiers in Psychology·Simen Bø, Katharina Wolff
Nov 13, 2018·Frontiers in Psychology·Erin I Walsh, Janie Busby Grant
May 21, 2020·Applied Neuropsychology. Adult·Mohamad El HajPhilippe Allain
Apr 22, 2021·Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology·Milena PertzPatrizia Thoma

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