| Sumario: | Seminal studies on children's episodic future thinking (EFT) have focused on EFT facilitated by direct experience. However, social EFT—helping someone with a future task—may rely on observing that person to infer goals and offer appropriate support. The role of personal and observational memory in guiding EFT for oneself and another was examined. One hundred sixty‐four children ages 3–5 years (92 females) who were Asian (n = 34), Black (n = 2), White (n = 118) and mixed‐race (n = 8) (remaining unknown) participated. Results showed that children performed best when episodic memory (EM) and EFT conditions matched: Personal EM supported EFT for oneself and observational EM supported EFT for another, both above chance (respectively, p < 0.0001, g = 0.49; p < 0.0001, g = 0.39). Highlights: Our paper investigated how personal and observational episodic memories (EM) contribute to episodic future thinking (EFT) for oneself or another.Using a modified Spoon task, we found that when EM and EFT perspectives were congruent, children used EFT better.These results demonstrate that EFT studies should consider the perspective of the EM that is sampled, and that EFT research in general should incorporate social contexts.
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