What is it about?
People think about the future using different time measures. We asked if using a more proximal measure makes the future feel closer and hence increases the urgency to get going and makes one's future self feel more connected and similar to one's current self.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
People often start too late and engage too little to attain important goals such as saving for their retirement or for their children's college education. We asked if thinking of these far-future goals as being days rather than years in the future helps people get going, feel connected and similar to their future self as retirees and parents of college-aged children. We found that that works -- people focus on the time unit (days, years) rather than the number -- even though 18 years (saving for college), and 30 or 40 years (saving toward retirement depending on the study) is a lot of days.
Perspectives
We enjoyed the process of conceptualizing this paper. We started with studies showing that people thought that a future event was closer when preparation had already started and they were asked to estimate its future time in more proximal units -- for example in days rather than in weeks. Then we turned to studies asking about getting started. Both parts are important and we think, useful.
Daphna Oyserman
University of Southern California
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: When Does the Future Begin? Time Metrics Matter, Connecting Present and Future Selves, Psychological Science, April 2015, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0956797615572231.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
