Emotional Disconnect Between the Present & Future Self Impacts Behaviour

Amy Taylor April 15, 2015

New research has found that the emotional disconnect we have with our future self could explain why many people continue to engage in unhealthy behaviours, don’t save for retirement, and make bad ethical decisions even though they are fully aware of the possible consequences.

Hal Hershfield, a social psychologist at UCLA, and collaborators from Stanford University studied the effects of emotional disconnect using fMRI technology. They compared neural patterns in the subjects who were asked to describe their future selves 10 years from now, as well as the other people. In other words, a human’s brain looks at his or her future self like another person.

Their findings show that the neural patterns evoked from thinking about one’s future self were more similar to those that come out when a person thinks about another person.

"One of the reasons people fail to make good choices and don’t act in ways that are positive in the long term is because they feel a sense of emotional disconnect from their future selves," said Hershfield.

The researchers found that participants who had the biggest differences in brain activations – people whose future self has looked most like another person, were the ones who had greater troubles making a financial decision during an exercise. Meaning, they were not able to wait for bigger financial rewards later.

Using a computer programme that is capable of ageing people’s photographs, the researchers found that people who see vivid pictures of their future faces—sparse hair going grey, age spots, a padding of subcutaneous fat—are willing to allocate more money—about twice as much—to a hypothetical long-term savings account.

In four studies using more advanced technology, subjects wearing immersive virtual reality headgear entered a virtual room to stand in front of a mirror.

According to Hershfield, for most people, ’right now’ is a lot more important than anything in the future. He said the biggest question that the research brings is how to get people step out of time a bit and connect with themselves over time. Also, is there a link between future-oriented behaviour and the emotional disconnect people have with their future selves?

Source of this article: The stranger within: Connecting with our future selves