Abstract: Time is a framework of understanding and defining self. Individuals could mentally travel back to the past and forward to the future. Research has demonstrated that the self drives mental time travel, showing self-descriptions predict the valence and personal focus of future events, and self-concept (e.g. core self-evaluations, self-construal, self-efficacy ) can drive the construction of past and future events. However, the cognitive mechanism of the effect of mental time travel on the self wasn’t explored yet. Task self-confidence in the present study means the extent of individuals’ sureness about their performance in a task, and it’s a part of the foundation of the cognitive construction of self-confidence. The current study examined the effect of time direction and events’ emotional valence on task self-confidence. This study included 2 experiments. In Experiment 1, 40 undergraduates were randomly assigned to 2 groups (past and future). First, they should recall or imagine self-related events freely in 8 time periods respectively (e.g. the 8 time periods of the past group were last year, the year before last year, 3 years ago, 4 years ago, 5 years ago, period of middle school, period of primary school, preschool period), and described them in the blanks below each time period. Afterward, participants predicted their performance in the upcoming graphic reasoning test by rating 7 items. All the 7 items’ average score represented the task self-confidence. The procedure of Experiment 2 was similar to Experiment 1. Eighty undergraduates were randomly assigned to 4 groups (i.e. past-positive, past-negative, future-positive, future-negative). According to what was required to each group, participants should recall or imagine self-related positive or negative events freely in 4 time periods respectively (e.g. the 4 time periods of the 2 past groups were last year, 3 years ago, 5 years ago, period of primary school), and described them in the blanks. After describing each event, they rated their feelings about it from 1(extremely negative) to 7(extremely positive). To eliminate order effect, the orders of generating events were balanced. Then, participants completed the prediction task which was the same as that in Experiment 1. Results of Experiment 1 showed that: time direction affected task self-confidence indirectly through the mediating effect of events’ emotional valence, that was, compared with events participants recalled in the past group, events in the future group were more positive, so that they induced higher task self-confidence. And in the model consisting of time direction, events’ emotional valence and time direction × events’ emotional valence, only events’ emotional valence could predict task self-confidence significantly. If events that people generated were more positive, they would introduce higher task self-confidence. When events’ emotional valence was manipulated, the effect of time direction and events’ emotional valence was separated (Experiment 2), and results showed: time direction didn’t affect on task self-confidence. A 2 (time direction: past, future) × 2 (events’ emotional valence: positive, negative) ANOVA on task self-confidence showed a significant main effect for events’ emotional valence, and a significant time direction × events’ emotional valence interaction. When participants recalled past events, valence didn’t affect task self-confidence; while as to future events, valence positively affected task self-confidence, positive events induced higher task self-confidence than negative events. When participants recalled or imagined positive events, time direction didn’t affect task self-confidence; while as to negative events, time direction negatively affected task self-confidence, that was, future direction induced lower task self-confidence than past direction. These results indicate that both time direction and events’ emotional valence can influence task self-confidence.

Key words: mental time travel, time direction, events’ emotional valence, task self-confidence

摘要： 时间是认识和定义自我的框架之一。本研究采用两个实验，探讨心理时间旅行对任务自信的影响。实验1采用自由回忆或想象过去、未来事件的操纵，结果发现：事件情绪效价影响任务自信，时间方向以事件情绪效价为中介间接影响任务自信，想象的未来事件比回忆的过去事件更积极，进而引发更高任务自信。实验2采用平衡回忆或想象事件的情绪效价的操纵，使效价与时间方向的作用相分离，结果发现：时间方向不影响任务自信，想象事件的情绪效价对任务自信的作用受到时间方向的调节。回忆过去事件时，效价不影响任务自信；而想象未来事件时，事件效价越积极，任务自信越高。对于时间旅行中的积极事件，时间旅行的方向不影响任务自信；而对于消极事件，想象未来所引发的任务自信低于回忆过去。结论：时间旅行的方向与想象事件的情绪效价共同作用于任务自信。

关键词: 心理时间旅行, 时间方向, 事件情绪效价, 任务自信