Much of my work revolves around how people make decisions about the future in different contexts, including various projects on modifying temporal discounting, environmental effects on decision-making, as well as the workings and biases of foresight more broadly.

I have investigated the insight that decision-makers have into their short- and long-term choices, including the use of precommitment strategies and reminders for delayed intentions. My work has spanned choices about financial, social, and health decisions, and addressed questions about self-control, impulsivity, and deliberation. Throughout, I have been interested in how the above all varies in context of behavioural health and disease.

I have been lucky enough to work with many excellent collaborators on these topics, named in the links above and listed below alongside associated publications.

Book chapters

All publications

Armitage, K.L., Suddendorf, T., Bulley, A., Bastos, A.P.M., Taylor, A.H., & Redshaw, J. (2023). Creativity and Flexibility in Young Children’s Use of External Cognitive Strategies. Developmental Psychology.


Bulley, A., & Schacter, D.L. (2023). Episodic future thinking, memory, and decision-making: From theory to application. In Memory in Science for Society: There Is Nothing As Practical As a Good Theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford.


Soutschek, A., Bulley, A., & Wittekind, C.E. (2022). Metacognitive deficits are associated with lower sensitivity to preference reversals in nicotine dependence. Scientific Reports.


Bulley, A., Lempert, K.M., Conwell, C., Irish, M., & Schacter, D.L., (2022). Intertemporal choice reflects value comparison rather than self-control: insights from confidence judgements. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.


Tuen, YJ., Bulley, A., Palombo, D.J., & O’Connor, B.B. (2022). Social value at a distance: Higher identification with all of humanity is associated with reduced social discounting. Cognition.


Liu, L., Bulley, A. & Irish, M. (2021). Subjective Time in Dementia: A Critical Review. Brain Sciences.


Bulley, A. & Schacter, D.L. (2021). Risks, real and imagined. Nature Aging.


Bulley, A. & Schacter, D.L. (2021). Increasing resolution in the mechanisms of resolve. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.


Suddendorf, T., Kirkland, K., Bulley, A., Redshaw, J., & Langley, M.C. (2020). It’s in the bag: mobile containers in human evolution and child development. Evolutionary Human Sciences.


Armitage, K.L., Bulley, A., and Redshaw, J. (2020). Developmental origins of cognitive offloading. Proceedings of the Royal Society B.


Bulley, A., Mccarthy, T., Gilbert, S.J., Suddendorf, T., and Redshaw, J. (2020). Children Devise and Selectively Use Tools to Offload Cognition. Current Biology.


Bulley, A., & Schacter, DL. (2020). Deliberating trade-offs with the future. Nature Human Behaviour.


Bulley, A., Redshaw, J., & Suddendorf, T. (2020). The future-directed functions of the imagination: From prediction to metaforesight. In The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination.


Redshaw, J., Bulley, A., & Suddendorf, T. (2019). Commentary on Hoerl & McCormack: Thinking about thinking about time. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.


Bulley, A., Miloyan, B., Pepper, G.V. Gullo, M. J., Henry, J.D., & Suddendorf, T. (2019). Cuing both positive and negative episodic foresight reduces delay discounting but does not affect risk taking. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.


Bulley, A., & Irish, M. (2018). The Functions of Prospection: Variations in Health and Disease. Frontiers in Psychology.


Suddendorf, T; Bulley, A., & Miloyan, B. (2018). Prospection and Natural Selection. Current opinion in behavioral sciences.


Bulley, A. (2018). The History and Future of Human Prospection. Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture.


Vandersee, J., Redshaw, J., Bulley, A., & Gilbert, S. (2018). Development of children’s use of external reminders for hard-to-remember intentions. Child Development.


Miloyan, B., Bulley, A., Brilot, B., & Suddendorf, T. (2017). The association of Social Anxiety Disorder, Alcohol Use Disorder and reproduction: Results from four nationally representative samples of adults in the USA. PLOS ONE.


Miloyan, B., Bulley, A., & Suddendorf, T. (2018) Anxiety: Here and Beyond. Emotion Review.


Bulley, A., & Pepper, G.V. (2017). Cross-country relationships between life expectancy, intertemporal choice and age at first birth. Evolution and Human Behavior.


Gautam, S., Bulley, A., Von Hippel, B. & Suddendorf, T. (2017). Affective forecasting bias in preschool children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.


Bulley, A., Henry, J., & Suddendorf, T. (2017). Thinking about threats: Memory and prospection in human threat management. Consciousness and Cognition.    


Bulley, A., & Gullo, M.J. (2017). The influence of episodic foresight on delay discounting and demand for alcohol. Addictive behaviours.


Bulley, A., Pepper, G., & Suddendorf, T. (2017). Commentary on Van Lange et al.: Using foresight to prioritise the present. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.


Redshaw, J., & Bulley, A. (2018). Future Thinking in Animals: Capacities and Limits. In G. Oettingen, T. Sevincer, & P.M. Gollwitzer (Ed.), The Psychology of Thinking about the Future. Guilford Press, New York.


Miloyan, B., Bulley, A., Bandeen-Roche, K., Eaton, W.W., & Gonçalves-Bradley, D. (2016). Anxiety disorders and all-cause mortality: systematic review and meta-analysis. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology.


Bulley, A., Miloyan, B., Brilot, B., Gullo, M.J., & Suddendorf, T. (2016). An Evolutionary Perspective on the Co-Occurrence of Social Anxiety Disorder and Alcohol Use Disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders.


Bulley, A., Henry, J.D., & Suddendorf, T. (2016). Prospection and the present moment: The role of episodic foresight in intertemporal choices between immediate and delayed rewards. Review of General Psychology.


Miloyan, B., & Bulley, A. (2016). Worry in Later Life. Springer Encyclopedia of Geropsychology.


Miloyan, B*., Bulley, A*., Suddendorf, T. (2016). Episodic Foresight and Anxiety: Proximate and Ultimate Perspectives. British Journal of Clinical Psychology.  *These authors contributed equally


Miloyan, B., Bulley, A., Pachana, N. A., & Byrne, G. J. (2014). Social phobia symptoms across the adult lifespan. Journal of Affective Disorders.