Construing the Past and Future

We here examine the nature of the pasts and futures that people construct and the role that implicit theories and motivation play in such creations. People's views of their pasts and futures are qualitatively different. They give their pasts mixed reviews, whereas they view their futures as unequivocally positive. We examine conditions that lead individuals and social groups to bias history in either an aggrandizing or effacing direction. We then discuss the nature of people's forecasts in a variety of domains—ranging from the general (e.g., “What does my future hold?”) to the specific (e.g., predicting completion times of tasks). Finally, we examine factors that affect whether predictions are accurate and influence behavior.