Anne E. Wilson

Wilfrid Laurier University | WLU · Department of Psychology

Voters evaluate political candidates not only based on their recent record but their history, often faced with weighing the relevance of long-past misdeeds in current appraisal. How should a distant transgression be taken to reflect on the present? Across multiple years, political figures and incidents, we found that people’s subjective perceptions...

People often expect a future brighter than the present. However, expectations of steep improvement have been linked to worse psychological functioning, perhaps because rosy predictions often do not come to pass. Should we conclude that expecting a highly satisfying future is maladaptive? We wondered instead whether the adaptiveness of these traject...

It is well-recognized that increasingly polarized American partisans subscribe to sharply diverging worldviews. Can partisanship influence Americans to view the world around them differently from one another? In the current research, we explored partisans’ recollections of objective events that occurred during identical footage of a real protest. A...

Americans’ hostility toward political opponents has intensified to a degree not fully explained by actual ideological polarization. We propose that political animosity may be based particularly on partisans’ overestimation of the prevalence of extreme, egregious views held by only a minority of opponents but imagined to be widespread. Across five s...

The idea of heritability may have consequences for individuals’ sense of self by connecting identity to the actions of others who happen to share genetic ties. Across seven experimental studies (total N = 2,628), recalling morally bad or good actions by family members influenced individuals’ moral self among those who endorse a lay belief that mora...

The idea of heritability may have consequences for individuals’ sense of self by connecting identity to the actions of others who happen to share genetic ties. Across seven experimental studies (total N=2,628), recalling morally bad or good actions by family members influenced individuals’ moral self among those who endorse a lay belief that moral...

Novel coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) is spreading across the world, threatening not only physical health but also psychological well‐being. We reasoned that a broadened temporal perspective may attenuate current mental distress and tested a letter‐writing manipulation designed to connect people to their post‐COVID‐19 future selves. We conducted an...

Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is spreading across the world, threatening not only physical health but also psychological well-being. We reasoned that a broadened temporal perspective may attenuate current mental distress and tested a letter-writing manipulation designed to connect people to their post-COVID-19 future selves. Participants wer...

Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is spreading across the world, threatening not only physical health but also psychological well-being. We reasoned that a broadened temporal perspective may attenuate current mental distress and tested a letter-writing manipulation designed to connect people to their post-COVID-19 future selves. Participants wer...

Political polarization is on the rise in America. Although social psychologists frequently study the intergroup underpinnings of polarization, they have traditionally had less to say about macro societal processes that contribute to its rise and fall. Recent cross-disciplinary work on the contemporary political and media landscape provides these co...

Political polarization is on the rise in America. Although social psychologists frequently study the intergroup underpinnings of polarization, they have traditionally had less to say about macro societal processes that contribute to its rise and fall. Recent cross-disciplinary work on the contemporary political and media landscape provides these co...

Political polarization is on the rise in America. Although social psychologists frequently study the intergroup underpinnings of polarization, they have traditionally had less to say about macro societal processes that contribute to its rise and fall. Recent cross-disciplinary work on the contemporary political and media landscape provides these co...

Introduction As the global climate changes, heat waves are having a disproportionate impact on seniors and other socially vulnerable groups. In order to mitigate the threats of extreme heat, it is critical to develop and promote resources for coping during these events. A better understanding of the role of risk perceptions and the factors that inf...

Introduction Les changements climatiques mondiaux entraînent des vagues de chaleur qui ont une incidence disproportionnée sur les personnes âgées et divers autres groupes socialement vulnérables. Afin d’atténuer les risques associés aux épisodes de chaleur extrême, il est essentiel d’élaborer et de promouvoir des ressources permettant de faire face...

We expected that enhanced future self-continuity could benefit students planning future academic and career pursuits, and tested a new method to foster self-continuity. A pilot study demonstrated that future self-continuity predicted academic and career planning and was lower in vocational-oriented than academic-oriented high school students. In St...

Various multiple-disciplinary terms and concepts (although most commonly “interdisciplinarity,” which is used herein) are used to frame education, scholarship, research, and interactions within and outside academia. In principle, the premise of interdisciplinarity may appear to have many strengths; yet, the extent to which interdisciplinarity is em...

People evaluate themselves against a variety of standards. In addition to measuring themselves against relevant others (social comparisons), individuals often appraise their current selves by looking to their former and future selves (temporal comparisons). This chapter first considers temporal comparison in relation to social comparison and then d...

Public discourse on current inequalities often invokes past injustice endured by minorities. This rhetoric also sometimes underlies contemporary equality policies. Drawing on social identity theory and the employment equity literature, we suggest that reminding people about past injustice against a disadvantaged group (e.g., women) can invoke socia...

Survey and experimental evidence documents discrimination against tattooed individuals in the labor market and in commercial transactions. Thus, individuals’ decision to get tattooed may reflect short-sighted time preferences. We show that, according to numerous measures, those with tattoos, especially visible ones, are more short-sighted and impul...

Why is there not more public outcry in the face of rising income inequality? Although public choice models predict that rising inequality will spur public demand for redistribution, evidence often fails to support this view. We explain this lack of outcry by considering social-psychological processes contextualized within the spatial, institutional...

Background Although health promotion efforts to increase exercise behavior often emphasise long‐term outcomes, sustained action in service of a distal reward is challenging. These studies examined how focusing on the proximal benefits of exercise, compared to distal outcomes or more general outcomes, may strengthen individuals’ self‐regulatory self...

Despite their ubiquity, tattoos continue to be associated with dishonesty. Notwithstanding, we find few differences in the reporting behavior of tattooed and non-tattooed individuals in either a low-stakes or a high-stakes honesty-detection task.

Human engagement in pro-environmental action is necessary for mitigating the effects of climate change. However, psychological barriers, such as feeling that the problem is distant in time and that any personal actions would only be a “drop in the bucket,” reduce people’s motivation to engage in pro-environmental behaviors that are essential for th...

People vary in their chronic beliefs about the malleability of human attributes such as intelligence and morality. These lay theories of change can play a powerful role in people’s self-regulation, person perception, and decisions. Although we acknowledge that people may have a lay theory to which they predominantly turn, we consider the ways that...

The present research examines how the subjective time of relational memories is linked to present relationship satisfaction. We tested the hypothesis that satisfied (but not dissatisfied) partners would keep happy relational events subjectively close in time and relegate transgressions to the subjectively distant past (regardless of when those even...

Scientists predict that climate change will cause substantial changes to life on our planet, and that human behavior should change substantially in order to mitigate its impact. Hence, we propose that lay theories of change are among the psychological factors that can influence pro-environmental engagement. We predicted that people who think of the...

Every close relationship has a history, but how people manage their relational past varies and can have important implications in the present. The current research investigated the role of subjective representation of time: how feeling subjectively close (vs. distant) to a past relational transgression (vs. kind act) predicted "kitchen thinking"—th...

The Many Labs 3 project (Ebersole et al., 2016) included in its 10-study package a replication attempt of Ross and Wilson (2002, Study 2). The main effect (that positive personal events seem subjectively closer in time than equidistant negative ones) was replicated; the original interaction with self-esteem was not. I reflect on the ways in which M...

This study examined whether the belief in sociocultural norms for beauty are linked to individuals’ assumptions about how others judge them and their subsequent perceived relational value (social worth and connection to others). In a lab session, female undergraduates (N = 210) were assigned to either a target or observer condition and engaged in a...

Temporal self-appraisal theory suggests that people can regulate current self-view by recalling former selves in ways that flatter present identity. People critique their subjectively distant (but not recent) former selves, creating the illusion of improvement over time. However, this revisionist strategy might not apply to everyone: People with fi...

People differ in their implicit theories about the malleability of characteristics such as intelligence and personality. These relatively chronic theories can be experimentally altered, and can be affected by parent or teacher feedback. Little is known about whether people might selectively shift their implicit beliefs in response to salient situat...

Background: Despite evidence that outcomes are highly valued when they are expected sooner rather than further into the future (Ainslie, 1975), limited research effort has been devoted to understanding the role of exercise outcome proximity. The purpose of this study was to examine how temporal proximity to positive outcomes influences exercisers'...

This study investigated whether temporal distance to a future self in a year’s time moderated the exercise intention–behavior relationship. Eighty adult regular cyclists, runners, and group exercisers completed an online survey that assessed exercise intentions and closeness to a future self, as well as a 4-week follow-up survey to report exercise...

Four studies demonstrate that people’s representations of an area’s size are subjective and shaped by context and relevant attitudes. Americans expressing greater anti-Muslim sentiment desired a Muslim or Arab structure to be further away from Ground Zero, and in turn enlarge the subjective size of Ground Zero. This spontaneous expansion of area oc...

Although individuals must act today to achieve many long-term, collective future goals, they often consider such goals to be temporally remote concerns that do not require immediate action. In two studies, we examined whether individuals are more motivated to pursue long-term collective future goals when they subjectively experience them as tempora...

Three studies examined whether people hold meaningful implicit attitudes toward future selves. Two approaches to measuring implicit future self-esteem were developed (individualized and generic Implicit Association Tests) and attitudes toward the self in ten (Studies 1 and 2) or one years' time (Study 3) were assessed. We predicted that implicit fu...

Temporal landmarks such as birthdays and significant calendar dates structure our perception of time. People might highlight temporal landmarks spontaneously in an effort to regulate connections between temporal selves. Five studies demonstrated that landmarks are used spontaneously to induce psychological separation from undesirable temporal selve...

Family-based therapy is regarded as best practice for the treatment of eating disorders in adolescents. In family-based therapy, parents play a vital role in bringing their child or adolescent to health; however, little is known about the parent-related mechanisms of change throughout treatment. The present study examines parent and adolescent outc...

Much as physical landmarks help structure our representation of space, temporal landmarks such as birthdays and significant calendar dates structure our perception of time, such that people may organize or categorize their lives into "chunks" separated by these markers. Categories on the temporal landscape may vary depending on what landmarks are s...

Past research suggests that people identify with positively evaluated groups. However, some in-groups may be evaluated highly yet identification may be hampered by social norms prohibiting in-group pride. Social norms may stem in part from in-group history. In Study 1, Germans rated their nation more highly on quality-of-life dimensions, yet identi...

We examined the role of subjective temporal distance in people's future self-predictions. Consistent with temporal self-appraisal theory, we hypothesized that people would be motivated to evaluate future selves more favorably when they felt closer in time, because subjectively close future selves have more direct implications for current identity t...

Research suggests that exposure to sociocultural norms for idealized appearance can reduce both women's and men's body satisfaction. Despite comparable effects for both genders in the lab, in the "real-world" women's body satisfaction is chronically lower than men's. Real-world gender differences may arise from discrepancies in men's and women's ev...

Just as with threats to personal identity, people defend against social identity threats. In the context of intergroup injustice, such defensiveness undercuts collective guilt and its prosocial consequences. The current research examines whether group affirmation allows perpetrator groups to disarm threat without undermining guilt. In Study 1, men...

Across four studies, people sat (or reported they would sit) closer to physically similar others. Study 1 revealed significant aggregation in seating patterns on two easily observed characteristics: glasses wearing and sex. Study 2 replicated this finding with a wider variety of physical traits: race, sex, glasses wearing, hair length, and hair col...

In everyday life people estimate completion times for projects in the near and distant future. How might the temporal proximity of a project influence prediction? Given that closer events elicit more concrete construals, we proposed that temporal proximity could enhance two kinds of concrete cognitions pertinent to task completion predictions: step...

Relegating past in-group transgressions to ancient history might deflect threat to collective identity. Germans (but not Canadians) judged the Holocaust to be more subjectively remote in time when they read only about German-perpetrated atrocities than when this threat was mitigated. Greater subjective distance predicted lower collective guilt, whi...

We explore the function of subjective perceptions of time in regulating personal identity. Events that reflect favourably on the self feel more recent than events that reflect negatively on the self. We propose that this systematic bias in subjective time judgment serves an identity regulation function: These biases allow people to maintain a favou...

The present research demonstrates that focusing on someone new may help anxiously attached individuals overcome attachment to an ex-romantic partner, suggesting one possible motive behind so-called rebound relationships. A correlational study revealed that the previously demonstrated link between anxious attachment and longing for an ex-partner was...

The current research examined the self-enhancement, motivational, and behavioral implications of subjective distance to future goals. Study 1 revealed that students felt subjectively closer in time to anticipated success than to expected failure on a midterm, which may refect a self-protective mechanism keeping self-threats at bay. Additionally, th...

People have long been fascinated by the notion of time travel. Physicists, philosophers, and fortune tellers have all grappled with whether and how we might grasp the past and the future. From H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine to the cartoon Futurama, the implications, paradoxes, and promises of time travel frequently appear in fiction, film, and popul...

Past research has identified a host of benefits associated with volunteering and community involvement, yet involvement appears to be on the decline in recent years. We tested the effectiveness of an intervention designed to encourage involvement. We provided young adolescents with information about volunteer opportunities, benefits and ways to ove...

People's current identity is constructed not only in the present moment but also by looking back to past selves and forward to future selves. In this article, we review research on the temporally extended self, with a focus on recent work informed by temporal self-appraisal theory. People often recall the past and imagine the future in ways that co...

The present studies tested whether the salience of sociocultural norms for ideal appearance leads women to base their self-worth more strongly on appearance, which in turn leads them to feel more concerned with others' perceptions and less satisfied with their bodies. Study 1 tested this model by manipulating the salience of the sociocultural norm...

Theory and research suggests that cultural norms for appearance present unrealistic standards of beauty which may contribute to women's body dissatisfaction. In Study 1, women described their appearance more negatively than men and made more upward social comparisons about their bodies, but not about other domains. Women also compared more than men...

Temporal self-appraisal (TSA) theory states that people are motivated to praise their psychologically recent past selves and criticize their psychologically distant past selves in order to feel good about themselves in the present (Wilson and Ross, 2001a). To date, evidence supporting TSA theory (Ross and Wilson, 2002; Wilson and Ross, 2001a; 2003)...

Two studies examined self-appraisals in Japanese and Canadian samples. Study 1 included open-ended self-descriptions; Study 2 incorporated indirect measures of self-enhancing tendencies. In Study 1, the content analysis assessed spontaneous evaluations of self and others, private and relational self-statements, reflected appraisals, temporal and so...

Part 1. The Emergence of the Self and Memory. Denise R. Beike, James M. Lampinen, Douglas A. Behrend, Evolving Conceptions of the Self and Memory. Jochen Barth, Daniel J. Povinelli, John G. H. Cant, Bodily Origins of Self. Mark L. Howe, Early Memory, Early Self, and the Emergence of Autobiographical Memory. Part 2. Narrative Conceptions of the Self...

We investigated children's personal representations of significant sibling conflicts. Forty pairs of siblings were interviewed separately about the same disputes. Although they described the same episodes, both older (M age = 7.0) and younger (M age = 4.4) siblings ascribed more serious transgressions to their opponents than to themselves. They als...

Autobiographical memory plays an important role in the construction of personal identity. We review evidence of the bi-directional link between memory and identity. Individuals' current self-views, beliefs, and goals influence their recollections and appraisals of former selves. In turn, people's current self-views are influenced by what they remem...

We examine links between self-assessment and autobiographical memory. People generally view themselves as improving over time, relative to their peers. We suggest that this sense of improvement is sometimes illusory, and motivated by the desire to enhance the current self. Our research focuses on people's subjective feeling of temporal distance bet...

Children's use of deception in a naturalistic setting was observed longitudinally in 40 families when children were 2 and 4 years old, and again two years later. Goals included describing children's lying behavior and parents’ reactions to lies, and comparing lies to other false statements. Lies were commonly told to avoid responsibility for transg...

In a study of bicultural individuals’ self-perceptions, Chinese-born students were randomly assigned to participate in either Chinese or English. Serving as controls, Canadian-born participants of either European or Chinese descent participated in English. The effects of the language manipulation paralleled findings in previous studies comparing Ea...

Supporting predictions from temporal self-appraisal theory, participants in 3 studies reported feeling farther from former selves and experiences with unfavorable implications for their current self-view than from equally distant selves and experiences with flattering implications. This distancing bias occurred when assignment to negative and posit...

Supporting predictions from temporal self-appraisal theory, participants in 3 studies reported feeling farther from former selves and experiences with unfavorable implications for their current self-view than from equally distant selves and experiences with flattering implications. This distancing bias occurred when assignment to negative and posit...

The relative deprivation construct has been widely used in the social sciences to explain phenomena from experiencing psychosomatic stress to participating in urban riots. It is currently a valuable tool in research, being used especially to understand processes of social identity and responses to disadvantage by both disadvantaged minorities and p...

The authors present and test a theory of temporal self-appraisal. According to the theory, people can maintain their typically favorable self-regard by disparaging their distant and complimenting their recent past selves. This pattern of appraisals should be stronger for more important attributes because of their greater impact on self-regard and s...

The authors present and test a theory of temporal self-appraisal. According to the theory, people can maintain their typically favorable self-regard by disparaging their distant and complimenting their recent past selves. This pattern of appraisals should be stronger for more important attributes because of their greater impact on self-regard and s...

Although past literature emphasizes the importance of social comparisons, in this study it was predicted that participants would often mention temporal comparisons in their self-descriptions. The first 3 studies revealed that participants report as many or more temporal-past comparisons than social comparisons. It was predicted that people would pa...

An impressive body of evidence has accumulated demonstrating that many of the judgmental ‘errors’ or ‘biases’ formerly thought due to purely cognitive shortcomings actually reflect the operation of communication goals and strategies that people rely upon to comprehend and generate meaningful conversation. This study examines the effects of individu...

An impressive body of evidence has accumulated demonstrating that many of the judgmental 'errors' or 'biases' formerly thought due to purely cognitive shortcomings actually reflect the operation of communication goals and strategies that people rely upon to comprehend and generate meaningful conversation. This study examines the effects of individu...