Episodic Thinking Research Articles

Episodic future thinking reduces delay discounting among persons who use e-cigarettes.

There has been an alarming increase in e-cigarette dependence among young adults, many of whom would like to quit vaping nicotine but are finding it difficult to do so. Episodic future thinking (EFT), a cognitive intervention involving imagining future events, has been shown to reduce cigarette craving, demand intensity, and self-administration among cigarette smokers but has not been tested with e-cigarette users. This study tested if a brief EFT intervention decreases delay discounting and smoking choice using a within-subjects experimental design administered via Zoom. Daily young adult e-cigarette users attended a baseline session and two counterbalanced experimental sessions: (a) EFT in which participants preexperienced and described positive future events and (b) standardized episodic thinking, a control intervention in which participants described their experiences watching three short videos. Measures of craving, mood, and delay discounting across three commodities: Money, e-cigarette products, and food were completed pre- and postmanipulation. As predicted, monetary delay discounting showed a greater decrease following EFT relative to standardized episodic thinking (p = .006; ηp² = .229). There were no effects on craving or mood. Participants also completed a 40-min vaping versus money choice task. Approximately 70% of participants chose to abstain for the full 40 min after EFT compared to 60% after the control condition, a nonsignificant difference (p = .184). Additional research is needed to support the efficacy of EFT as an intervention for helping e-cigarette users increase their ability to abstain. The study demonstrates the feasibility of conducting experimental research on e-cigarettes in a virtual setting. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A fragile effect: The influence of episodic memory on delay discounting.

Delay discounting occurs when a reward loses value as a function of delay. Episodic future thinking (EFT) reliably decreases delay discounting. EFT may share cognitive features with recalling episodic memories such as constructive episodic simulation. We therefore explored whether recalling episodic memories also reduces delay discounting. In Experiment 1, participants wrote about episodic memories and recalled those memories before completing a delay discounting task. Episodic memories reduced delay discounting according to one commonly used delay discounting measure (area under the curve) but not another (using the hyperbolic model). Experiment 2 compared the effects of general and episodic memories. Neither general nor episodic memories significantly decreased delay discounting compared with a control "counting" condition, but episodic memories reduced delay discounting compared with general memories under some conditions. In Experiment 3, episodic memories did not decrease delay discounting compared with three other control conditions while EFT did. Experiment 3 therefore found that thinking must be both episodic and future orientated to reduce delay discounting. Together, these results suggest that episodic thinking is not sufficient to reliably decrease delay discounting, rather, features unique to episodic future thinking are required. Episodic memory might reduce delay discounting in some contexts, but this effect is small and fragile.

The date/delay effect in intertemporal choice: A combined fMRI and eye-tracking study.

Temporal discounting, the tendency to devalue future rewards as a function of delay until receipt, is influenced by time framing. Specifically, discount rates are shallower when the time at which the reward is received is presented as a date (date condition; e.g., June 8, 2023) rather than in delay units (delay condition; e.g., 30 days), which is commonly referred to as the date/delay effect. However, the cognitive and neural mechanisms of this effect are not well understood. Here, we examined the date/delay effect by analysing combined fMRI and eye-tracking data of N = 31 participants completing a temporal discounting task in both a delay and a date condition. The results confirmed the date/delay effect and revealed that the date condition led to higher fixation durations on time attributes and to higher activity in precuneus/PCC and angular gyrus, that is, areas previously associated with episodic thinking. Additionally, participants made more comparative eye movements in the date compared to the delay condition. A lower date/delay effect was associated with higher prefrontal activity in the date > delay contrast, suggesting that higher control or arithmetic operations may reduce the date/delay effect. Our findings are in line with hypotheses positing that the date condition is associated with differential time estimation and the use of more comparative as opposed to integrative choice strategies. Specifically, higher activity in memory-related brain areas suggests that the date condition leads to higher perceived proximity of delayed rewards, while higher frontal activity (middle/superior frontal gyrus, posterior medial frontal cortex, cingulate) in participants with a lower date/delay effect suggests that the effect is particularly pronounced in participants avoiding complex arithmetic operations in the date condition.

Episodic Thinking in Alzheimer's Disease Through the Lens of Language: Linguistic Analysis and Transformer-Based Classification.

Episodic memory decline is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and linked to deficits in episodic thinking directed to the future. We addressed the question whether a deficit in episodic thinking can be picked up directly from connected speech and its detection can be automatized. We linguistically classified 2,809 utterances (including embedded clauses in the utterances) from picture descriptions from 70 healthy older controls, 82 people with mild probable AD (pAD), and 46 people with moderate pAD for whether they were episodic, nonepisodic, or "other" (e.g., off-task). Generalized linear regression models were used to investigate how ratios of these categories change in AD, controlling for age, gender, and education. Finally, we applied deep learning technique to explore the feasibility of automating the episodicity analysis. Decline in episodicity significantly distinguished controls from both mild pAD and moderate pAD. Correlation analysis suggested this decline not to be an effect of age, gender, and education but of cognitive ability. The decline was not compensated by an increase of nonepisodic utterances but mainly of off-task expressions. A transformer-based classifier to explore the possibility of automatizing the classification of episodicity achieved a macro F1 score of 0.913 in the ternary classification. These results show that a loss of episodicity is an early effect in AD that is manifested in spontaneous speech and can be reliably measured by both humans and machines.

Autobiographical memory and future episodic thinking among trauma‐exposed Rohingya refugee people

AbstractPast research has shown that trauma‐exposed refugee people frequently report less specific autobiographical memories, but the characteristics of their future episodic thinking remain largely unexplored. This study investigated the specificity and emotional valence of autobiographical memory and future episodic thinking produced by 120 Rohingya refugee people resettled in Malaysia. The participants retrieved three autobiographical memories and produced three future episodes to three cue words. The Post‐Traumatic Stress Disorder‐8 Scale, Patients Health Questionnaire‐9, and Trauma Questionnaires assessed participants' PTSD, depression, and trauma exposures. Results revealed that nearly two‐thirds of the memories (64%) were overgeneral, and almost an equal number contained traumatic elements (63%). However, most future episodes were overgeneral (91%), and two‐thirds showed positivity bias (62.5%). The participants who retrieved more autobiographical memories with enhanced specificity also reported more future episodes with enhanced specificity. The higher PTSD and depression significantly predicted the reporting of overgeneral future episodes. Participants with a lower level of depression were more likely to report future episodes with enhanced positivity. The results indicate that therapeutic interventions targeting improving memory specificity and the positivity of future episodes could eventually improve refugee people's mental health.

Paradoxical Leadership: An Episodic-Circadian Approach

Paradoxical leadership, the integration of leadership behaviors that are seemingly contradictory, but nevertheless interdependent, is becoming increasingly important in today’s complex and turbulent business environments. Despite evidence for the positive consequences of paradoxical leadership, little research has examined how and when leaders can effectively integrate opposing leadership behaviors. Two of the most fundamental paradoxical challenges that leaders face include the need to integrate control and empowerment, as well as reconciling collective rules with followers’ individual needs. In this article, we advance a circadian theory of paradoxical leadership that outlines how leaders can combine episodic thinking with circadian principles to achieve a dynamic equilibrium between the opposing poles of these two leadership paradoxes. Our temporal framework explains how leaders can effectively structure paradoxical leadership episodes that leverage their own and their followers’ circadian processes within a broader framework of situation-driven leadership. In doing so, we contribute to future research by providing a novel circadian perspective on how paradoxical tensions in organizations can be reconciled within the constraints of situational demands.

Episodic Future Thinking about Smoking-Related Illness: A Preliminary Investigation of Effects on Delay Discounting, Cigarette Craving, and Cigarette Demand.

Cigarette smokers show excessive delay discounting (devaluation of delayed rewards), which may contribute to tobacco use disorder. Episodic future thinking (EFT), or mental simulation of future events, has been shown to reduce both delay discounting and laboratory smoking behavior. Traditionally, EFT involves vividly imagining positive future events. In this preliminary investigation, we examined the effects of EFT specifically about smoking-related illness (SRI) on delay discounting, cigarette craving, and behavioral economic demand for cigarettes. In a 2 (episodic thinking) × 2 (smoking-related illness) factorial design, we randomly assigned smokers from Amazon Mechanical Turk to one of two EFT groups: EFT alone or EFT + SRI; or one of two episodic “recent” thinking (ERT) control groups: ERT alone or ERT + SRI. Both EFT groups generated and imagined positive future events, while both ERT groups imagined real events from the recent past. Both EFT + SRI and ERT + SRI groups imagined these events while also experiencing SRI symptoms. Participants then completed assessments of delay discounting, cigarette craving, and measures of cigarette demand. We observed significant main effects on delay discounting of both EFT (reduced discounting) and SRI (increased discounting), as well as significant main effects of both EFT and SRI on cigarette craving (in both cases, reduced craving). No significant main effect of EFT was observed on cigarette demand measures, although we observed a main effect of SRI on quantity of demand when cigarettes were free (Q0) (reduced demand). In all analyses, we observed no significant EFT × SRT interactions, indicating that these variables operate independently of one another. These methods may be adapted for use in clinical treatment to aid in smoking cessation interventions.

Increasing anticipated and anticipatory pleasure through episodic thinking.

Episodic future thinking for positive future events is known to evoke positive affect. We aimed to assess whether it specifically evokes anticipated and anticipatory pleasure for future events, and behavioral intention. As a secondary aim, we examined if this differed compared to a condition of thinking of positive past events. In two studies, participants nominated 5 upcoming positive events and 5 positive past events. They then completed guided episodic thinking of past events and guided episodic thinking of future events. After guided episodic thinking, they rated the nominated future events on detail/vividness, mental imagery, anticipated and anticipatory pleasure, and behavioral intention. In Study 1 (N = 32, M age = 37.0, SD = 19.7), increases on all variables were found relative to baseline, although expected pleasure was at trend level. There were no significant differences between future and past conditions. In Study 2 (N = 29, M age = 38.4, SD = 16.3), participants were asked to nominate future events that were not already planned, and perceived control was also assessed. Again, increases in detail/vividness, mental imagery, and anticipated and anticipatory pleasure were found, this time with stronger effects for the future condition. No change was found for perceived control or intention. In both studies, increases in detail/vividness, mental imagery, and anticipated and anticipatory pleasure were generally positively correlated with increases in behavioral intention. This study provides evidence that guided episodic thinking increases anticipated and anticipatory pleasure for positive future events. Clinical implications, particularly in depression and schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Episodic future thinking: A behavioral intervention to promote weight loss in breast cancer survivors.

TPS12139 Background: Obesity at diagnosis is associated with an increase in breast cancer (BC) specific mortality. Behavioral interventions targeting obesity-related health choices offer a scalable approach to improve patient engagement in the community. Episodic Future Thinking (EFT) is a novel remotely delivered behavioral intervention which engages the science of prospection where participants mentally simulate positive, detailed, and personal events that can occur in the future. EFT targets a key behavioral economic measure – Delay Discounting (DD). As DD rate rises, an individual devalues future outcomes to a greater degree and has a higher bias for immediate gratification. EFT can decrease DD in obese patients, leading to improved diet quality and weight loss. However, valuation of the future may impact cancer survivors differently. Herein, we propose the first randomized Phase II trial evaluating adherence and changes in DD and body weight with 12-week remotely delivered EFT vs control in overweight or obese BC survivors. Methods: Eligible patients have a history of DCIS or stage 1 to 3 BC, BMI > 25 kg/m2, have completed surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, and are motivated to lose weight. They are randomized 1:1 to a 12-week EFT intervention or control (Episodic Recent Thinking; ERT). ERT is a validated control in which patients imagine events in the recent past. Randomization will be stratified by baseline DD rate. There is an optional 12 week follow up period where patients can continue to receive EFT or ERT cues. DD will be measured at baseline and every 4 weeks for 24 weeks. The primary endpoint is adherence, measured by percentage of thrice daily smartphone prompts participants open and attend to during the 12-week trial. Secondary endpoints are changes in body weight and DD rate at 12 and 24 weeks and change in PROs (PROMIS scales), insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), hs-CRP, and diet quality (HEI 2015) at 12 weeks from baseline. With 20 subjects per arm, the study has 80% power to detect deviation of 14 points from a target adherence rate of 80% using a 1 sample t-test. The primary endpoint is evaluable for all subjects, regardless of drop-out. Secondary endpoints will be evaluated using a linear mixed effects model. Hypothesis tests and confidence intervals will be two-sided at 5% significance/95% confidence level. Since trial activation in November 2021, 9 of the planned 46 patients are enrolled. Accrual is closely integrated with the dedicated Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center Survivorship Program. This work is supported by the Alliance Cancer Control Program Pilot Award (5UG1CA189823-08). Clinical trial information: NCT05012176.

A Circadian Theory of Paradoxical Leadership

Paradoxical leadership, the integration of leadership behaviors that are seemingly contradictory, but nevertheless interdependent, is becoming increasingly important in today’s complex and turbulent business environments. Despite evidence for the positive consequences of paradoxical leadership, little research has examined how and when leaders can effectively integrate or reconcile opposing leadership behaviors. Two of the most fundamental paradoxical challenges that leaders face include the need to integrate control and empowerment, as well as reconciling collective rules with followers’ individual needs. In this article, we advance a circadian theory of paradoxical leadership that outlines how leaders can combine episodic thinking with circadian principles to achieve a dynamic equilibrium between the opposing poles of these two leadership paradoxes. Our temporal framework explains how leaders can effectively structure paradoxical leadership episodes that leverage their own and their followers’ circadian processes within a broader framework of situation-driven leadership. In doing so, we contribute to future research by providing a novel circadian perspective on how paradoxical tensions in organizations can be reconciled within the constraints of situational demands.

Brief inductions in episodic past or future thinking: effects on episodic detail and problem-solving.

Episodic specificity inductions, involving brief training in recollecting episodic details, have been shown to improve subsequent performance on tasks involving remembering the past, imagining the future and problem solving. The current study examined if specificity inductions targeting self-referential past or future episodic thinking would have dissociable effects on generating past and future episodic detail and problem solving. Sixty-three participants were randomised to either a past self-referential or future self-referential episodic induction. All participants also completed a control task. Participants randomised to the self-referential future thinking induction generated more episodic details on past and future narrative tasks compared to a control task, whereas participants randomised to a self-referential past thinking induction showed similar performance to the control task. When examining within-group performance of participants randomised to the past or future induction, we found some evidence of dissociable effects of inductions on narrative generation tasks, but not on problem solving outcomes. Our findings suggest that self-referential inductions may be useful for increasing episodic specificity, but that the temporal distance and direction of the induction matters. We discuss our results in the context of the potential clinical utility of this approach for populations vulnerable to autobiographical memory disruption.

Delay discounting and adjuvant endocrine therapy adherence in hormone receptor-positive breast cancer.

Oral endocrine therapy improves survival among hormone responsive breast cancer (HRBC) survivors; however, 30-70% of patients are nonadherent. One patient-centered factor that may impact adherence is delay discounting (DD), or the degree to which patients value future outcomes. In prior research, DD is robustly associated with maladaptive health behavior; but no work to our knowledge has examined delay discounting and medication nonadherence in breast cancer patients. Study 1 examined cross-sectional associations between DD and endocrine therapy nonadherence. Study 2 examined whether DD in the HRBC population is amenable to a brief intervention-episodic future thinking (EFT), in which participants preexperience future events. In Study 1, HRBC survivors completed assessments of DD and endocrine therapy adherence (pill count and self-report). In Study 2, participants were randomized to engage in a brief behavioral intervention (EFT) or a control condition, and again completed assessments of DD. Eighty nine female HRBC survivors completed Studies 1 and 2. Controlling for other known risk factors, greater DD was significantly associated with poorer pill-count but not self-report adherence. In Study 2, the EFT intervention significantly reduced DD when compared to control episodic thinking. DD is associated with direct-observation (pill count) measures of endocrine therapy adherence in HRBC survivors, suggesting it is a potential therapeutic target for improving adherence. This target is also amenable to intervention with EFT. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Future thinking is related to lower delay discounting than recent thinking, regardless of the magnitude of the reward, in individuals with schizotypy

ObjectivePeople often prefer immediate small rewards compared to delayed larger rewards, which is referred to delay discounting. Schizotypy, a subclinical group at risk for schizophrenia, tends to discount more than healthy controls. Episodic future thinking (EFT), in which people mentally simulate future events to pre‐experience the future, has been found to reduce delay discounting in the general population, but whether this effect can be found in individuals with schizotypy remains unknown. The present study examined, in individuals with schizotypy, whether EFT was associated with lower delay discounting compared to episodic recent thinking (ERT), and whether this effect was related to the magnitude of reward.MethodA total of 63 individuals with schizotypy were randomly assigned to the EFT condition (n = 30) or the ERT condition (n = 33). A delay discounting task with both large and small reward conditions was used, and before making choices, participants were asked to vividly think about a future event (EFT condition) or a recent past event (ERT condition).ResultsResults showed that participants in the EFT condition showed lower delay discounting rate than participants in the ERT condition, regardless of the magnitude of reward. These findings suggest that EFT enhanced the ability to resist immediate reward and had an effect on impulsive decision‐making in schizotypy.ConclusionsThese results provided crucial insights for developing effective intervention for schizophrenia.

Does Episodic Future Thinking Repair Immediacy Bias at Home and in the Laboratory in Patients With Prediabetes?

This study aimed to determine if episodic future thinking (EFT) can decrease delay discounting (DD) among adults with prediabetes both in and out of the laboratory. DD measures how much the value of a reinforcer decreases as a function of the delay to receive it. Adults with prediabetes (n = 67) completed a three-session study. At session 1, baseline measures (including DD) were collected. At sessions 2 and 3, participants were prompted to engage in either EFT or control episodic thinking (CET) while completing DD and other measures. In addition, between the completion of sessions 2 and 3, participants engaged in EFT or CET at home and completed DD tasks remotely via smartphones or other Internet-connected devices. Results showed significant -1.2759 (-20.24%) reductions in DD in the EFT group compared with a + 0.0287 (+0.46%) DD increase in the CET group (p = .0149) in the laboratory; and -0.4095 (-8.85%) reduction in DD in the EFT group compared with a + 0.2619 (+5.64%) increase in the CET group (p = .011) at home. Working memory (measured by Backwards Corsi and Digit Span) was found to moderate the effects of EFT on some measures of DD. EFT did not change measures from the food purchase task or a food ad libitum procedure. Results show that EFT decreases DD in and out of the laboratory and supports the further exploration of EFT as an intervention for prediabetes and related chronic diseases. NCT03664726.

Episodic future thinking reduces chronic pain severity: A proof of concept study

BackgroundChronic pain is a major public health challenge in the United States and around the world. Current treatments including opioid analgesics and cognitive behavioral therapy possess harmful side effects or limited efficacy, respectively. Chronic pain is associated with a variety of unhealthy behaviors including opioid misuse. Moreover, individuals who suffer from chronic pain exhibit excessive discounting of delayed rewards, suggesting a constricted temporal window of valuation.Reductions in the excessive discounting of delayed rewards has been achieved with Episodic Future Thinking (EFT; vividly imagining realistic future events). EFT has also been associated with reductions in a variety of unhealthy behaviors. In this study, the effects of EFT on delay discounting and levels of pain were investigated in individuals reporting chronic pain. MethodsIndividuals reporting chronic pain (N = 250; 42.4 % female) were recruited through the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform. Measures of delay discounting and pain were collected at baseline and again after randomization to EFT (N = 128) or Control Episodic Thinking (CET) (N = 122). ResultsEFT significantly reduced delay discounting relative to baseline (p < 0.001) and EFT reduced pain scores in a baseline dependent manner (p = 0.001) when compared to CET; that is, those with the greatest reports of pain experienced the greatest reduction. Furthermore the reduction in delay discounting fully mediated the reduction in pain. ConclusionsThese findings suggest that Episodic Future Thinking, by widening the temporal window, may reduce pain in those reporting chronic pain and therefore represents a potential novel therapeutic.

Supplemental Material for Increasing Anticipated and Anticipatory Pleasure Through Episodic Thinking

Supplemental Material for Increasing Anticipated and Anticipatory Pleasure Through Episodic Thinking

Mothers’ DASH diet adherence and food purchases after week-long episodic future thinking intervention

Prospection has helped participants forego the temptation to buy and eat higher calorie nutrient poor foods in favor of buying and eating fewer calories and healthier macronutrient profiles in laboratory tasks and brief field studies. This pilot study examines whether episodic future thinking (EFT) improves mothers’ dietary behavior and food purchasing over a longer 7-10-day period. The study utilized a 2 × 2 factorial design with mothers (N = 60) randomized to EFT or standardized episodic thinking (SET) crossed with dietary approaches to stop hypertension (DASH) diet education or a food safety education control. Participants listened to their cues (e.g., recordings of themselves imagining a future event or recalling a past episode) using a mobile ecological momentary intervention (EMI) tool and returned to complete a follow-up dietary recall and submit food receipts. Results showed diets of mothers in the EFT groups became more concordant with the DASH diet (ηp2 = 0.08, p < .05) than mothers in the SET group. When considering food purchases for the family, there was an EFT effect on milligrams of sodium purchased (ηp2 = 0.07, p < .05) and a trend towards a decrease in grams of fat purchased (ηp2 = 0.06, p = .06), however, these findings were no longer significant after correcting for multiple comparisons. There were no DASH education effects and no DASH by EFT interactions observed. The dietary intake and food purchasing results should be replicated in larger more representative samples.

A web-based episodic specificity and future thinking session modulates delay discounting in cannabis users.

Episodic future thinking (EFT), a brief intervention involving mental simulation of positive future events, improves delay discounting (DD) in nicotine and alcohol dependent individuals. This study is the first to assess effects of a single-session, online episodic training (ET) on constructs that might impact cannabis use and cannabis use disorder. A sample of 200 active cannabis users recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk were randomized to an EFT group (n = 102) or an episodic recent thinking control group (ERT; n = 98). A novel episodic specificity induction (ES) was included to enhance quality of episodic thinking for the ET group, and an ES attention control was provided to the ERT group (control training group; CT). Quality and manipulation ratings of event excitement, vividness, importance, and enjoyment of trainings were collected in addition to DD tasks (gains and losses) and readiness to change cannabis use. The ET group reported higher overall quality and manipulation ratings than did the CT group (p < .001, d = 0.79). DD of gains was lower in the ET relative to those of the CT group after controlling for relevant variables (p = .003, d = 0.48), unlike DD of losses (p = .50, d = 0.11). The ET group showed larger pre/post increases in readiness to change, but they were not statistically significant (p = .069, d = 0.26). These effects, following a session of online ET, suggests that ET may positively impact factors related to reduction in cannabis use. Differential effects of EFT and ES components on DD and the development of ET as an adjunctive mHealth intervention targeting reduction in cannabis use appears warranted. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The role of the pre-commissural fornix in episodic autobiographical memory and simulation

Neuropsychological and functional magnetic resonance imaging evidence suggests that the ability to vividly remember our personal past, and imagine future scenarios, involves two closely connected regions: the hippocampus and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Despite evidence of a direct anatomical connection from hippocampus to vmPFC, it is unknown whether hippocampal-vmPFC structural connectivity supports both past- and future-oriented episodic thinking. To address this, we applied a novel deterministic tractography protocol to diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) data from a group of healthy young adult humans who undertook an adapted past-future autobiographical interview (portions of this data were published in Hodgetts et al., 2017a). This tractography protocol enabled distinct subdivisions of the fornix, detected previously in axonal tracer studies, to be reconstructed in vivo, namely the pre-commissural (connecting the hippocampus to vmPFC) and post-commissural (linking the hippocampus and medial diencephalon) fornix. As predicted, we found that inter-individual differences in pre-commissural - but not post-commissural - fornix microstructure (fractional anisotropy) were significantly correlated with the episodic richness of both past and future autobiographical narratives. Notably, these results held when controlling for non-episodic narrative content, verbal fluency, and grey matter volumes of the hippocampus and vmPFC. This study provides novel evidence that reconstructing events from one's personal past, and constructing possible future events, involves a distinct, structurally-instantiated hippocampal-vmPFC pathway.

An ecological momentary episodic future thinking intervention on mother's weekly food purchases.

Imagining one's own future (episodic future thinking, EFT) has helped mothers with overweight purchase healthier groceries during an online shopping task in the laboratory. The present study explored whether delivering an EFT intervention to participants' devices via an ecological momentary intervention (EMI) tool would help mothers purchase healthier food at brick-and-mortar stores. Participants (N = 43, mothers 31-52 years of age, BMI ≥ 24.9 kg/m2) were randomized to EFT or standardized episodic thinking (SET). EFT cues include a positive and vivid description of future events while SET cues focus on the recent experience of playing games in the laboratory. Cues were uploaded to participant profiles on an EMI site. Participants were trained on how to read and listen to cues as well as how to detail purchases. Participants received text reminders to listen to cues before shopping and returned with receipts the following day. Receipt data was analyzed to derive dependent variables, calories, and nutrients purchased per person. Correlations were used to analyze associations between study variables of interest, and ANOVAs were conducted to compare dietary variables by group. Participants in the EFT group purchased fewer calories, fewer grams of fat, fewer grams of saturated fat, and fewer miligrams of sodium than participants in the SET control group. Delivering EFT cues to participant devices may be a promising way to improve the calorie and nutrient content of food purchases. Future research should include a longer follow-up and analyze calorie changes over time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).