Thinking about the future is an integral component of human cognition –
one that has been claimed to distinguish us from other species. Building on
the construct of episodic memory, we introduce the concept of ‘episodic
future thinking’: a projection of the self into the future to pre-experience an
event.We argue that episodic future thinking has explanatory value when
considering recent work in many areas of psychology: cognitive, social and
personality, developmental, clinical and neuropsychology. Episodic future
thinking can serve as a unifying concept, connecting aspects of diverse
research findings and identifying key questions requiring further reflection
and study