The present dissertation investigates collective future thinking—the process of imagining what might happen in a group’s future—across cultures, with a focus on the roles of identity and media in shaping national future projections. The first paper examined how Americans, Turks, and Chinese envision the future of their country, and the extent to which perceived country well-being and their national identity influence these projections. Contrary to negative bias among Americans and Turks, Chinese participants envisioned a more optimistic national future. This cross-cultural difference was partly explained by Chinese participants’ higher perceived country well-being and stronger national identity. The second paper investigated mechanisms underlying Americans’ negativity in collective future thinking. Study 1 replicated this negativity bias using a fluency task and found that lower perceived country well-being predicted more pessimistic outlooks. Study 2 experimentally manipulated the emotional tone of news about the U.S. Participants who were exposed to negatively valenced news reported lower satisfaction with the country’s current condition, which in turn led to more pessimistic future projections compared to those who were exposed to positively valenced news or neutral information. The third paper examined how American and Chinese college students and community adults, citizens of two socioculturally distinct and rival countries, envisioned the future for their own versus that of the other. Surprisingly, both Americans and Chinese anticipated a more positive future for China than for the United States. This pattern likely reflects perceptions of current national conditions and the countries’ global standing. Among Chinese, stronger national identity and collective narcissism predicted more optimistic views of their country’s future, particularly among adults. Among Americans, exposure to positive news had a more diffuse effect, with enhanced optimism across target countries. Taken together, the present dissertation contributes to our understanding of how cultural context, social identity, and media shape the ways individuals anticipate national futures in a rapidly changing world.