#74 When I’m Sixty-Four
Did you make any New Year’s Resolutions? One common resolution is to save more money, which can be difficult because it requires sacrificing now for payoffs later.
While establishing an automatic investment plan can work, researchers have also investigated a more novel approach: fostering ties with our “future selves.”
Professor Hal Hershfield and colleagues hypothesized that one reason we care less about our distant selves is that we unconsciously think of our older selves as different people. Thus, vivid images could help connect us to our future selves and motivate us to save.
Via four studies, research participants interacted with age-progressed photos and virtual reality avatars of themselves – as Hershfield predicted, participants who did so allocated significantly more money to savings.
Want to see whether an older version of yourself can motivate you today? Try the Age Filter on this website or the (more forgiving) Time Machine Lens on Snapchat.