### abstract ###
popular culture reflects whatever piques our imagination
think of the myriad movies and books that take viewers and readers on an imaginary journey to the past or the future e g   gladiator  the time machine
despite the ubiquity of time travel as a theme in cultural expression  the factors that underlie people's preferences concerning the direction of time travel have gone unexplored
what determines whether a person would prefer to visit the certain past or explore the uncertain future
we identified three factors that markedly affect people's preference for hypothetical travel to the past or the future  respectively
those who think of themselves as courageous  those with a more conservative worldview  and-perhaps counterintuitively-those who are advanced in age prefer to travel into the future
we discuss implications of these initial results
### introduction ###
