Collaborative imagination synchronizes representations of the future and fosters social connection in the present.

From close friends to people on a first date, imagining a shared future appears fundamental to relationships. Yet, no previous research has conceptualized the act of imagination as a socially constructed process that affects how connected we feel to others. The present studies provide a framework for investigating imagination as a collaborative process in which individuals cocreate shared representations of hypothetical events-what we call collaborative imagination. Across two preregistered studies (

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Competing interests statement:B.B.O. was a co-author on a paper with Daniel L. Schacter published in 2022.