People vary widely in the amount of thought they devote to the future, as distinct from past and present. Some invest far more resources than others in projecting themselves forward—imagining, analyzing and evaluating future possibilities and probabilities. They also vary in how far they tend to project Some habitually think in terms of the “deep future.” Others penetrate only into the “shallow future.” We have, therefore, at least two dimensions of “futureness”—how much and how far. There is evidence that among normal teenagers maturation is accompanied by what sociologist Stephen L.
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