The primary focus of this volume is on the adolescents' ability to direct their thoughts and
actions towards the future and to create mental construals of hypothetical future events:
present images wishes hopes fears and plans regarding action-goals in the future. The major
aim is to understand how young people construct their future-oriented goals and the plans
related to them as a means of navigating into adulthood how these efforts are determined by
their previous life history and the extent to which they think future-orientation will
influence their later lives. The contributions included in this volume take one further step
towards a full understanding of these complex mechanisms.
