Imagined futures mislead when they leave out features that matter, and help when they represent the critical ones

As a result, when a future scenario involves features or properties that are not represented when people imagine that scenario, but are relevant to how they will feel or perform when the scenario actually unfolds, individuals are very likely to be led astray by their incomplete, essentialized, or unrepresentative simulations. By contrast, simulations tend to be useful when they do represent critical features of an upcoming situation.