The calendar holds a small promise: lunch with a friend next week, an afternoon away from work, a visit from someone we miss. Before any of it happens, we may find ourselves smiling. Nothing in our immediate surroundings has changed, yet the thought of something enjoyable has altered the feeling of the day.

This is one of the quiet pleasures of having a future. We can experience some enjoyment before an event arrives. Anticipatory joy gives a hoped-for experience a place in our present emotional life. Research suggests that imagining specific positive experiences can strengthen this pleasure, although feeling better while imagining an event does not necessarily make us more likely to pursue it (Hallford et al., 2022).

Looking forward can enrich an ordinary day. It can also become a way of postponing life until circumstances improve. Understanding anticipatory joy means considering both its immediate value and its relationship to the choices we make now.

What Is Anticipatory Joy

Anticipatory joy is the pleasure we experience now while looking forward to a positive future event. The event might be a meaningful accomplishment, a familiar pleasure, or a welcome change. The defining feature is the timing of the feeling: enjoyment begins before the experience itself.

Researchers distinguish this present feeling from anticipated pleasure, which is our expectation of how enjoyable an event will be. Thinking that a concert will be wonderful is anticipated pleasure. Feeling a lift in mood while imagining being there is anticipatory pleasure. Enjoying the music when the concert begins is the pleasure of the experience itself (Baumgartner et al., 2008; Hallford et al., 2022).

These experiences can overlap without matching perfectly. We might expect to enjoy a visit but feel mostly anxious while preparing for it. We might also enjoy imagining a vacation that proves less satisfying than expected. Separating the prediction from the present feeling helps us ask a more precise question: What is this thought doing for us right now?

The word joy can suggest exuberance, but looking forward may feel quieter. A sense of warmth, interest, or gentle eagerness can matter even when we never feel an unmistakable rush of excitement.

How Imagining Tomorrow Changes Today

The mind can represent a future experience in broad terms or as a particular episode. There is a difference between thinking that we would like more connection and imagining Saturday morning at a familiar cafe with a friend. Episodic future thinking involves mentally simulating a specific possible experience in which we could participate (Hallford et al., 2022).

Specificity gives the mind more to work with. We can imagine the place, the conversation, and the part of the experience we expect to enjoy. Such details can make an upcoming event emotionally engaging before it occurs. This does not establish that the imagined scene will happen as pictured; it explains how a possible experience can affect us now (Hallford et al., 2022).

Fred Bryant places anticipation within the broader psychology of savoring. Savoring involves attending to and regulating positive experience. It can concern an upcoming event, something unfolding in the present, or an experience recalled afterward. Looking forward is one way we can appreciate pleasure across time (Bryant, 2021).

This perspective helps explain why an enjoyable event need not be confined to the hours it occupies. Planning a meal together or talking about an upcoming visit can become part of what we value about it. The pleasure belongs to the present even though its subject lies ahead.

Research on Anticipatory Pleasure

Hallford, Farrell, and Lynch (2022) examined anticipated and anticipatory pleasure in two small studies involving 32 and 29 adults. Participants identified positive past events and possible positive future events, then took part in guided simulations. Thinking in detail about these experiences generally increased reported pleasure concerning the future events. The pattern differed between studies: future thinking had a clearer advantage over past thinking in the second study.

The studies suggest that guided thinking can make particular future events more pleasant to anticipate. They do not show that the benefit lasts. Participants described their own feelings and rated the same events repeatedly. Without a separate group that repeated the ratings without guided thinking, we cannot tell how much of the change came from the guidance and how much came from returning to the events (Hallford et al., 2022).

Anticipatory Joy and Motivation

Feeling pleased about a future and taking action toward it are related possibilities, but they are different outcomes. Baumgartner and colleagues (2008) distinguish emotions we currently experience about the future from emotions we expect to feel later. Their work examines how both relate to goal pursuit. That relationship does not mean that every increase in pleasant anticipation will translate into action.

Hallford and colleagues found mixed results. In the first study, people said they were more likely to do the activities after guided thinking. The second study found no clear increase in that likelihood or in their sense of control. People who reported larger gains in pleasure also tended to report greater willingness to participate, but this does not show that pleasure caused the change. The researchers did not establish whether people later completed more activities (Hallford et al., 2022).

In Rethinking Positive Thinking, Gabriele Oettingen (2014) distinguishes positive expectations grounded in a judgment of likelihood from pleasant fantasies of wish fulfillment. Her account describes how indulging in an ideal future can sometimes reduce the energy devoted to pursuing it. She also recognizes that fantasies can offer comfort and help us explore what we want. Their usefulness depends partly on what we expect them to accomplish.

Consider someone who dreams of having more time outdoors after retirement. Imagining a mountain trail might make a difficult afternoon more bearable. That immediate enjoyment has value. If the person also wants to make the retirement possible, questions about money, health, obligations, and timing still require attention.

There is no need to turn every pleasant thought into a productivity exercise. Looking forward to dinner can simply be enjoyable. When a desired future depends on sustained effort, it helps to notice whether imagining it leads back to engagement or repeatedly replaces it.

Bringing Hopes into Contact with Reality

Mental contrasting begins with something we want and then brings attention to what currently stands in the way. In four experiments, Oettingen and colleagues found that people who considered both the desired future and present obstacles adjusted their commitment according to how likely success seemed. Simply imagining the desirable outcome, or dwelling only on difficulties, did not produce the same pattern (Oettingen et al., 2001).

An important part of that finding is often overlooked: greater commitment is not always the appropriate result. When success seemed feasible, mental contrasting supported stronger commitment. When expectations were unfavorable, it supported weaker commitment. Assessing a hope can involve revising it or directing effort elsewhere, as well as persisting (Oettingen et al., 2001).

For example, someone looking forward to reconnecting with a friend might imagine the warmth of a conversation and then recognize an obstacle: both keep waiting for the other to suggest a time. A practical response would be to offer a specific invitation. The example illustrates how recognizing an obstacle can clarify a next step.

Reality also includes circumstances beyond personal effort. Illness, caregiving, limited resources, and another person’s choices can restrict what is possible. A useful appraisal makes room for those conditions. It should help us choose a workable response rather than assign blame for every unrealized wish.

A Pleasant Future Is Still a Prediction

Anticipation can feel convincing because it produces an actual emotion. The warmth we feel while imagining a new home is real. Our conclusion that living there will make us permanently happy remains a prediction.

Daniel Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness examines the errors involved in forecasting future feelings. Imagination supplies some details and omits others, often without making those gaps apparent. It can also borrow heavily from the way we feel in the present (Gilbert, 2006). We might picture the freedom of a different job while overlooking its routine demands, or find an ordinarily appealing opportunity difficult to appreciate on a discouraging day.

For a consequential choice, consider what an ordinary day in that future might contain. Gilbert also discusses others’ experiences as a useful source of information about future feelings (Gilbert, 2006). Someone already living in the place or doing the work may reveal details our preferred picture leaves out. We can enjoy a possibility while continuing to ask what we actually know about it.

When Looking Forward Is Difficult

Looking forward does not feel the same for everyone, or even for the same person from one week to another. Sometimes an appealing possibility brings worry. Sometimes it is difficult to feel much anticipation at all. Neither response is adequately understood by assuming that the person needs to think more positively.

When Anticipation Brings Worry

A welcome event can contain uncertainty. A holiday may involve expense and family tension. A new opportunity may bring fears about competence or belonging. It is understandable that an upcoming experience can have both appealing and difficult features.

Grupe and Nitschke (2013) describe anxiety in relation to uncertainty about potential threats. Their review distinguishes useful preparation from excessive anticipatory responding. Considering a difficulty can help us prepare; repeatedly rehearsing possible trouble can become burdensome without providing useful new information.

One practical question is whether further thinking produces a decision or action. Checking travel arrangements might resolve an uncertainty. Repeatedly imagining every way a visit could go badly may leave the person no better prepared. Acknowledging a concern can help us see what needs attention while leaving room to appreciate the parts of the visit we welcome.

When Pleasure Is Hard to Anticipate

For some people, the difficulty is a lack of positive expectation. A familiar activity may seem unlikely to offer much pleasure, making the invitation to look forward feel remote. Research on depression and anhedonia describes difficulties expecting rewards, finding the motivation to pursue them, and learning from rewarding experiences. Enjoyment during an activity and motivation to approach it do not always change together (Pizzagalli, 2014).

This matters because an absence of eagerness does not, by itself, tell us everything about how an eventual experience will feel. It also does not establish a diagnosis. Difficulty anticipating pleasure deserves understanding, especially when it is persistent or part of a broader change in a person’s life. The small studies of guided episodic thinking discussed here do not establish it as a treatment for depression (Hallford et al., 2022).

Making Room for Anticipatory Joy

A reasonable starting point is an experience that is personally appealing and possible within current circumstances. It need not be expensive or impressive. An unhurried conversation, a favorite meal, or time with a hobby can provide something concrete to anticipate.

For a brief moment, consider one particular occasion. Where would it take place? What part would you enjoy? Who, if anyone, would be there? The prompts resemble the attention to setting, people, and positive details used in Hallford and colleagues’ guided simulations. Trying them alone is an informal adaptation, rather than an established equivalent of the research procedure (Hallford et al., 2022).

If vivid pictures do not come easily, thinking in words about what you value in the experience can offer another way to explore it. This offers a way to reflect when mental pictures are difficult; it has not been shown to work as well as the guided imagery procedure. If an action is needed, it might be as modest as suggesting a time or setting aside materials. There is also room to discover that a different activity would suit you better.

Allowing Enjoyment to Have Value

Imagine looking forward to an afternoon reading, then immediately asking whether the time could be spent more usefully. The imagined pleasure now has to defend itself. Will the book make us more knowledgeable? Will resting improve tomorrow’s work? Those may be welcome benefits, but requiring a further payoff can overshadow the enjoyment we originally anticipated.

Tonietto and colleagues (2021) examined beliefs about leisure across four studies involving 1,310 participants. People who regarded leisure as wasteful reported less enjoyment, particularly when the activity was pursued for its own sake. In experiments, messages portraying leisure as wasteful or unproductive reduced enjoyment. Messages portraying it as productive did not increase enjoyment relative to a control condition.

Those studies concerned activities people experienced, rather than anticipatory pleasure itself. They nevertheless raise a useful question for how we approach something enjoyable: must this experience accomplish another goal before we allow it to matter? Looking forward to reading, sharing a meal, or listening to music can be part of an enjoyable life even when it produces no measurable improvement in performance.

Leaving Room for Your Actual Feelings

Another pressure arises when we believe that a pleasant plan should make us intensely happy. We might begin by looking forward to the afternoon, then become disappointed that we are not more excited. The feeling we hoped to welcome becomes a standard against which we judge ourselves.

Mauss and colleagues (2011) found that placing a high value on happiness could have paradoxical effects in some circumstances. In their experiment, women encouraged to value happiness reacted less positively to a happy film than women in a control group. Disappointment with their own feelings helped account for the pattern. The research involved women in the United States and did not directly test anticipatory joy, so it should not be read as a universal argument against seeking happiness.

Taken together, the leisure and happiness studies suggest a thoughtful way to approach anticipation: give an appealing experience some attention without requiring it to justify its usefulness or produce a prescribed emotional intensity. This is an application of related findings, rather than a tested sequence. A little interest may be enough for the moment. If little pleasure appears, that response is something to notice with curiosity, not another task at which we have failed.

A Few Words by Psychology Fanatic

The lunch marked on the calendar may still be a week away. Thinking about it can bring a moment of warmth to a day that also contains work, uncertainty, or fatigue. We do not have to resolve every difficulty before allowing that small pleasure to matter.

Some hopes need planning and effort; others simply give us something welcome to look forward to. We can enjoy the thought of a visit and still attend to the person beside us. An appealing tomorrow need not become a reason to overlook the day we are already living.

Tomorrow remains uncertain. Even so, there may be something within reach that we would be glad to experience. Giving that possibility a little attention can be one way of caring for the life we are living today.

Associated Concepts

• Episodic Foresight: The capacity to imagine specific possible future experiences, including the settings and actions they might involve.
• Affective Forecasting: Predicting how we will feel in future circumstances, including how pleasant or unpleasant the experience may be.
• Savoring Life: Attending to and appreciating positive experience through anticipation, enjoyment in the moment, or recollection afterward.
• Mental Contrasting: Considering a desired future alongside present obstacles, helping us assess whether to pursue a goal, revise it, or direct our efforts elsewhere.
• Anhedonia: Reduced interest or pleasure in normally rewarding experiences, which can involve difficulties anticipating enjoyment as well as experiencing it.
• Positive Emotions: Pleasant emotional experiences, such as joy, gratitude, and interest, that may arise from present events, remembered experiences, or imagined possibilities.

References

Baumgartner, Hans; Pieters, Rik; Bagozzi, Richard P. (2008). Future-Oriented Emotions: Conceptualization and Behavioral Effects. European Journal of Social Psychology, 38(4), 685–696. DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.467.
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Bryant, Fred B. (2021). Current Progress and Future Directions for Theory and Research on Savoring. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, Article 771698. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.771698.
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Gilbert, Daniel (2006). Stumbling on Happiness. Knopf. Ebook edition. ISBN: 9780307265302.
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Grupe, Dan W.; Nitschke, Jack B. (2013). Uncertainty and Anticipation in Anxiety: An Integrated Neurobiological and Psychological Perspective. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14(7), 488–501. DOI: 10.1038/nrn3524.
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Hallford, David John; Farrell, Helen; Lynch, Ebony (2022). Increasing Anticipated and Anticipatory Pleasure Through Episodic Thinking. Emotion, 22(4), 690–700. DOI: 10.1037/emo0000765.
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Mauss, Iris B.; Tamir, Maya; Anderson, Craig L.; Savino, Nicole S. (2011). Can Seeking Happiness Make People Unhappy? Paradoxical Effects of Valuing Happiness. Emotion, 11(4), 807–815. DOI: 10.1037/a0022010.
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Oettingen, Gabriele (2014). Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation. Current. Ebook edition. ISBN: 9780698139824.
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Oettingen, Gabriele; Pak, Hyeon-ju; Schnetter, Karoline (2001). Self-Regulation of Goal Setting: Turning Free Fantasies About the Future into Binding Goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(5), 736–753. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.80.5.736.
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Pizzagalli, Diego A. (2014). Depression, Stress, and Anhedonia: Toward a Synthesis and Integrated Model. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 10, 393–423. DOI: 10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-050212-185606.
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Tonietto, Gabriela N.; Malkoc, Selin A.; Reczek, Rebecca Walker; Norton, Michael I. (2021). Viewing Leisure as Wasteful Undermines Enjoyment. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 97, Article 104198. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2021.104198.
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