Pushkin, the brain activity that arose when we thought of our future selves looked more like the brain activity that arose when we thought of others. On a neural level, the future self looks like another person.
Psychologist Hal Hirschfield studies the emotional connection we have to our future selves and the benefits of strengthening that connection.
We've found that people who are connected to their future selves are more likely to have saved money over time, they exercise more, They're more likely to make ethical decisions, and feel more of a sense of meaning in their lives.
On today's episode, Why Your Future Self Needs Your Help Today, I'm Maya Shunker and this is a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become in the face.
Of a big change.
Hell is a professor at UCLA and his work is at the intersection of psychology and economics. His new book is called Your Future Self, How to Make Tomorrow Better Today. It might seem funny to think of yourself in this way, that there's a present you and a future you. I mean, isn't there just one you? But Hell says the way your brain thinks about your sense of self isn't quite so straightforward.
I think on the surface many of us would say, yet like I am who I am, I'm oneself, You're Maya, I'm hal and I have been and you have been. So what's interesting here is that if you start thinking about your life over time, it becomes a little hard to say that you are sort of this single entity. Right.
Your interests may have changed, your friends may have changed, the city you live in, the job you have, like all of these things about you, your personality, right, all of these things, and so it can be a little bit difficult to say that there's sort of this oneself. And so I think a better notion to really capture the essence of identity over time is that we are a collection of separate selves. And so you do have the current version of you, current Maya, but then there's
also a future self. There's a future version of you in five years, and there's also a future self that exists in twenty years or thirty years. So when I talk about current and future selves, what I'm trying to reflect is the reality that in many ways we're not this stable single entity over time.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, there's really fascinating neuroscience research and psychology research that corroborates this and shows that from a psychological point of view, we don't see ourselves as this single entity over time that persists, and I think there's a lot of benefits from that, right, Maybe it opens us up to wonder and curiosity about who we might become. But there's also research showing that there's a possible downside
to seeing ourselves as a collection of cells. And one of those downsides is that when we see our future cells as a distinct entity from who we are today, it can lead to our having less empathy towards that future self. And so, can you tell me how about what I find to be just an amazing neuroscience study showing how our brains perceive our present day self and our future self.
So, one of the things that neuroscientists have found is that there's a different pattern of activity in the brain when people think about themselves compared to when they think about others. Now, my collaborators and I said, let's take these same ideas and apply them to thoughts of future selves.
And what we found is that when we put people into the scanner, the brain activity that arose when people thought of their future selves looked more like the brain activity that arose when they thought of other people, which is really striking in a way. It's on the neural level, the future self looks like another person. Wow, it suggests that we are thinking of those future selves as if they are other people. Now, there's an important caveat here,
which is that that's on average. Some people had patterns in the brain where the future self looked wildly like another person, and some people the difference was much smaller. Now a couple weeks later, we brought those same people back to the lab and we gave them decisions that they could make between smaller amounts of money that they could have right now and larger amounts of money they could have later. It's sort of a classic present future
trade off. It's a little like spending versus saving, and it's.
Really asking at its heart, how much do you care about your future self being happy with this sum of money versus your present day self?
Right exactly. So, on the one hand, what we found is that the people for whom the future self looked most like another person, they said, I'll take the money right now and not save it for later. But then the flip side, the people for whom the future self looked most similar, most connected to the current self. Those are the ones who said, I'll wait, I'll wait till later and take more money for a future version of me.
Yeah.
Are there any psychological studies that look at the amount of empathy that we have towards our future selves.
There is one study that comes to mind. So krim ca some and his colleagues did this work where they might say that people imagine you to win a lottery right now, how happy would you be on it, you know, on a one to ten scale, about an eight, I guess, And then they ask people how happy would you be if you want sort of an equivalent, you know, let's adjusted for inflation, lottery in the future, in five years, two years, whatever it might be. And the interesting thing
there is that people's responses are lower. So I say, oh, I don't know, I'd be about a six or seven. And it's funny because if it's the same amount of money, you think I'd be the same amount of happy. But the reality is, somehow the things that are happening now feel stronger, and the things that are happening in the future feel somehow more muted.
Another study that I love, which I think shows the same result that emerges from the neuroscience study is shown in this psychological study in terms of our frame of reference when we're thinking about our present day self and our future self. And gosh, I love this one. It feels so viscerally true in my own experience. So do you mind describing this particular study?
Yes? So, Emily Pronin and Lee Ross did this great work. They ask people to describe a meal they're having right now, and when people do that, they naturally use the first person perspective. I am eating plasta, I am eating a sandwich or whatever it is. And then they ask a different group to imagine a meal in the very distant future. And when a different group of people do that exercise, some of them say, oh, I'll be eating pasta, I'll beating a sandwich, but way more of them switch to
say he is eating a sandwich, He's eating pasta. They flip to use the third person perspective when thinking about their future self. And this is work that's been replicated by Neil McCrae and others as well. And I find it so interesting because it suggests that on this subtle psychological level, we make this little flip in our mind so that our future self now is seen as another.
Yeah, when I sit here and then I imagine myself if I'm so lucky that I'm here many decades from now, in say a convalescent home. Right, I'm looking at myself sitting in the convalescent home.
Right.
I have the ability to imagine myself in the first person. But it's not what comes instinctively, Whereas if I imagine my life today or imagine my life tomorrow, I am seeing it through the mind's eye. So why do you think we're like this? So why do you think it is that we feel less empathy towards our future selves than we might otherwise want to.
I mean, I think to some extent you could go back in history and come up with an answer. Right, when life expectancy was much shorter, it really made sense to focus on what was certain, which was the present. Right, the distant future is wildly uncertain. Why should I do anything for it? But now we're living much longer, especially in developed countries, and not empathizing with the future self can look as if we are almost overly focused on
the present self. It sort of brings up the concept of what behavioral economists and psycholoists called present bias, which is that we are to some extent bias towards the things that are happening now, so much so that we end up really undervaluing things that will happen to some future version of ourselves. So if our future self is the type of person who we know exists but we don't really care about them, then we're probably not going to be doing things for their benefit.
Are there any other studies showing that the way we view our future self can change the kinds of decisions we make on behalf of that future self.
Absolutely so. In my own work, we've found that people who are connected to their future selves are more likely to have saved money over time, they experience greater financial wellbeing, they perform in more patient ways and laboratory tasks, you know. Other research has even found that the people who experience a greater sense of similarity and connection with their future selves also feel more of a sense of meaning in
their lives. They're more likely to make ethical decisions when given the option to act unethically, which is another one of these sort of present future trade offs.
Wait, tell me more about that one. How that's fascinating.
Well, if you think about it, If I'm given the option to cut a corner right now and get a little benefit right now, the trade off there is that I get something right now, but I also have the possibility of getting punished later.
Yeah, we're guilt feeling of guilt later.
Or guilt later, right, And I have researched with collaborators where we found that the people who experience a lower degree of connection with their future selves, they're more likely to opt for unethical negotiation strategies. Fascinating when given the opportunity, and that we even see this. It's a small effect that we see in laboratory settings where they get the opportunity to sort of cheat, if you will.
Given that we might change in unexpected ways, given that we will change, I should just say it's inevitability we will change in unexpected ways in the future. It can become a little bit tricky to figure out who we're actually making decisions on behalf of right, So when I make a decision today on behalf of my future self, I am incorporating my current preferences, my current values, my current beliefs into that decision. Making calculus and those things
might radically change. And so let's say, like how you've convinced me I need to bridge any empathy gaps that exist between my present self and my future self. I need to care a lot more about future Maya. But I don't know who I'm solving for.
Of course, if we're planning, we have to base those plans off of something, and the most relevant something is how we feel right now and who we are right now. And as you pointed it out really well, that change changes us and we can't fully anticipate those changes. At the same time, we can look to the core of us and the things that matter and try to make plans based on the values that we hold and what's
important right now. And I want to layer on top of that the need to revisit our plans and be compassionate with the idea that some of those values and some of our preferences may change over time.
Are there predictable ways in which we might change that we can account for now in terms of the decisions we make, or are there at least stable aspects of who we end up being that we can feel fairly good about.
Yeah, your question also gets a sort of this nuanced psychology of how much we actually change over time and in some ways. You know, what personality psychologists suggests is that it depends on where you look. In some ways we change and other ways we've remain the same. And so you know, there's the big five personality traits openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism. Over a ten year period, we can expect one of those to change. There's a good chance that one of
those traits will change, which is wild in a way. Right, there's the five core traits. One of them changes.
Can I choose neuroticism?
Please?
Can I talk to the psychology nods. I'd like to change that one everyone.
Yeah, my magic eight ball says that one is fixed.
Oh damn it.
You know, you know, we can expect right to get a more conscientious over time, and yet some of the other traits may remain quite stable. And obviously there's lots of videosyncrasies here, and there's individual differences. We can't predict what environmental factors and what external factors will will change those things.
Yeah, and I think the broader message is sure there might be some misforecast about how we think will end up. But it's better to care period about your future self, so at least that can be integrated into your present day decisions.
I think that's exactly right. And I think at the same time, if we're making all of our decisions for that future self, that's not going to lead to a very satisfying life right now. And you know that future self is constantly bugging me about decisions, like I'm going to get annoyed by him and probably start start ignoring him, right So, I mean, to some extent, this is really about some sense of balance, if you will, and flexibility between now and later.
After the break, we talk about how to strike that balance, plus a few ways you can build a better relationship with your future self. We'll be back in a moment with a slight change of plans. I feel like I Maya only learned maybe five years ago that I even had a present day self, because I'm so.
Oriented in the future.
I have been living future self Maya for so long, and then recently it was like, oh my gosh, there's actually a present day version of the How interesting maybe I should invest in now.
Well, this is so interesting because researchers talk about the experience you're describing, as they refer to it as hyperopia. So my apia is when I focus so much on the present that I missed the future. Hyperopia is where I focus so much on the future that I miss the present.
Yes, I feel so seen right now by this random technical term.
Well, what I find so interesting about this is that even though hyper apia is being so focused on the future, ironically, one of the outcomes of that is that we can end up almost doing a disservice to our future selves. The classic example of this is I have a gift certificate to a restaurant and I hold on to it, waiting for the perfect time to go to that restaurant. And we could go this weekend, but you know what, not this weekend. I want to wait until it's just right.
And then time goes by and the restaurant closes. And now I was thinking about doing something for my future self to make it a really great experience, And what I've done is robbed him of that experience. I've also robbed my present self of doing it now. And there's something humorous about that one. But then you think about these other cases. You know, maybe I'm working too much, Maybe I'm overly focused on certain goals I have, and in being so overly focused on them, I miss the
stuff that's right in front of me. Of course, that resonates with me too, and I think it resonates with a lot of people. One of the ways that I like to think about dealing with this is how do I create? And the term I really like here is harmony between present and future selves, so that in certain cases, the present self can live now to give the future
self memories to look back on. And another case is maybe the present self pulls back a little bit so that the future self has more resource is to use to create other memories. But if I went one direction or the other, it would be almost lumpy from a well being standpoint. And what my preference, at least in my own life would be is to smooth that out so that all those selves have that well being and utility.
Yeah, by the way, what you described so tracks with my experience as a kid. I went home to visit my parents in Connecticut. I was up in the attic just looking through old boxes of you know, I'm one of four kids, so there's a lot of boxes in the attic of like our old things, and I find this treasure trove of my absolute favorite stationary okay from
the time, and I was just unwilling to use it. Ever, it's like no, apparently I was saving it for the perfect occasion with a perfect friend, and there's just piles of it. Now this is all useless. It's like Coropi and Hello Kitty and all this stuff from this is really dating me, all those characters. But it's so useless now. But I remember at the moment thinking like, this is gold. You need to hold on to it. Maya right, Okay, you gotta.
Yeah, I'm here to say now is the time I think, you know, all future noteshould be on Hello Kitty.
Yeah, you just like can't use it recreationally by but any what I'm gleaning from this conversation is that you will actually become my pen pal after this and I will be writing letters to you and all that stationary. So it eventually went to good use, right because right now it's collecting dust.
It's in an addict in Connecticut.
Yes, okay, So moving on to those of us who struggle to have sufficient empathy for our future selves, it strikes me that part of the problem might be that we don't empathize enough with our present day selves, and so maybe that that's a place where we might start. You know, I was interviewing Kristin Neff on the science of self compassion for a slight change of plans, and so I'm just curious to know how you think about
the relationship between present day empathy and future empathy. It's like, well, I don't I'm not very kind to myself right now, and maybe I'm treating myself like I would a stranger that I was indifferent towards. It doesn't really well for me to really care about seventy year old Maya.
Yeah, no, I love that idea, and I think it makes perfect sense. It's slightly cheesy metaphor, but you know, when you're on an airplane and they say, you know, if oxygen mas terdrop, you have to put yours on first before you can help someone else. And the whole idea, of course, is that if you're rushing to help someone else and you haven't take care of yourself first, you'll no longer be able to help them. And I think absolutely the same could be said for our present and
future selves. That before we can start taking care of that future self and empathizing with them. We have to some extent take care of and empathize with the person we are right now. I don't know of any empirical research that's been done in this space, but man, that's a really interesting question.
So given that, what types of things can we do to cultivate a closer relationship with our future selves?
So one way to think about this is to start from the perspective that future self is, in many ways, as we've said, like another person. So if you start from that perspective, now I can say, all right, well, how can we get our cells to foster a greater connection to other people. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. Charities do this all the time. Marketers do this really well. And what they do is they make the recipients of charity donations more salient and more vivid and more emotional.
So let's apply those same lines of thinking to our future selves. Let's make them more vivid and more emotional. Right, Because if I can feel the emotions, I can feel the empathy that's going to drive me to do the actions, do the things that make life better. Right. So, you know, the high tech version of this. Something I've been playing with over the years is to show people what they'll
look like. Right. We can use age progression technology, and my collaborators and I have done this where we actually show people what they'll look like in the future. And we've played around with this in different context. Most recently, we ran a large scale study in Mexico and found that people who were exposed to their age progress images of their future selves were more likely to make a
contribution to retirement account. There are lower tech ways to do this too, so we don't all have to sit around printing out images of our future selves.
But some of us just all of a sudden have a bunch of gray hair on their heads without intending to.
Suddenly, I have looked in the mirror, and it's it's strange, how that is my future self.
No technology needed in this case.
Out very very weird how that happens. Yeah, you know so. Some lower tech versions of this are a conversational exercise writing letter to your future self and then writing a letter from your future self. And the reason I say that this is a low tech version is because of course we're not doing the technology, but it's still doing the same thing. It is making that future self more vivid.
One thought experiment that strikes me as potentially helpful for building a stronger connection with your future self is actually to look backwards and think about your past and recognize that your present day self, which you really care a lot about, is the future version of ten years younger Maya. Yeah, so like I am actually twenty something Maya's future self really care about myself today? I would really have wanted twenty something Maya to care about this version of me.
So is that also an exercise that we can use.
I think it's a lovely exercise, And so it's not something that we've tested. But I love the idea of scaffolding things by saying, when I was a present self.
Ten years ago, yeah, as totally that.
Past version of me made decisions that now affect the person I am right now. You know, when you do that, I think it can really highlight these threads of connection over time, and you know, really shine a light on the idea that the things I did in the past have impacted the person I am now, and the things I'm doing right now will impact the person I will be, and more than that, will also impact the things that that person that future me looks back on, either happily
or regretfully. So, you know, one of the techniques that I love is the idea of incre breating commitment devices. There's been lots of research on the idea that we can recognize that there's a version of me right now, and then there's this version of my future self who I want to say, you know, has done noble things and has eaten healthy and exercise and put on my sunscreen.
And then there's the sort of you know, version of me in the middle who may screw those things up, right, the guy who doesn't wake up in the morning to exercise, the guy who snacks so much overnight, and then the guy who says, you know, I think I'm good on the sunscreen. I'd like to get tanner. And so commitment devices are an amazing strategy because what they do is they put guardrails on our ability to make mistakes in
the future. And so the idea is that I sort of commit to behaving a certain way so that my present self wishes can become the things that you know, the eventual future version of me actually actually follows through on and does.
Is there an example of a commitment device that you've implemented on behalf of future.
How Okay? So I have like you would almost call it a light commitment device. It's a box I have at home. It's called a case safe, and it's just a little safe with an electronic timer on it.
Okay.
And so in an ideal world, around dinner time, I put my phone in there and I lock it away for two hours.
Oh wow.
And the commitment there is that I don't have access to all the fun things that my phone has on it, and the outcome is that I can be much more present with my family, you know, around dinner time, bedtime, et cetera. There's one catch, though, which is that I have to do it. I have to put it in there to begin with, right, And so the case safe lives in a cabinet. If it was on the counter,
I think I would do it a lot more. But my wife says that it doesn't look great on the counter, So so I haven't done that.
But you know what does look great? Lots of happy memories that you kids can look back on.
Yes, there we go.
I shall tell you that that's the best form of aesthetic.
That's what I need to say. And when I do it, by the way, it changes the experience of dinner time. Yeah, because there's not even a temptations, Like the actual only way I can get my phone is if I take a hammer to the safe.
Oh that's right, because it's got this electronic thing where you can really only get access to it two hours later.
So once it's in, yeah, it's done.
Okay, you can set it anywhere from one minute to ten days. But it benefits me now and it benefits me later.
How do you think that when we have a more empathetic view of our future selves, it could have a positive spillover effect on our empathy towards others. And you know the reason I'm interested in this is the other day I was in the doctor's office and when the elevator door opened, I saw this young woman just barrel past this older woman that was using a walker, and I just wanted to be like, uh.
Dude, that's going to be you.
Like, if you're lucky and you make it in this life, that will be you, I promise. And so that failure of empathy was just so devastating for me to witness. I mean, even for non selfish reasons, we should be kind to people and consider it. But even for selfish reasons, we should recognize that it and inevitably that will be our future.
I've thought about this a lot, because, you know, when you think about the way that we empathize with other people, by definition, we are not a part of those groups. But the one interesting thing here is that I will one day become my future self. I will one day become an older person, and so I've always wondered, if I can increase empathy for my future self, may I also increase empathy for older people and vice versa. If I can reduce some agism and increase empathy for older people,
might that spillover to my own self? And it's just a wonderful open question right now that we should dig into.
One challenge we face, especially younger generations, is just feeling so much fear about the future, right, feeling so much negativity that there's an anxiety and even thinking about future you, right, of course, And so how do we grapple with that.
I've heard younger people say, like, why should I even care? Right when jobs are being taken over by AI and climate change and inflation, and I'm making myself anxious right now listening all these things out, One exercise I like to consider is what sort of decisions from the past seemed like small decisions at the time, seemed like things we might want to ignore, but then became something much
bigger that we're dealing with right now. And then let me sort of translate that over to say, what sort of things are happening in the present right now that may evolve into something much bigger later. And so even though it may be scary and uncertain and undesirable to think about the future, we still have agency over it. We can still start to think about what are the seeds that are being planted right now that I can
fertilize or pull out and change. And I like using that lens to start grappling with some of the uncertainty that is existing both now and in the decades and even centuries to come.
Yeah, well on behalf of all future versions of myself. Thank you for this interview. How it's been such a pleasure to chat with you, so thank you so much.
Thank you, Maya, so great to talk to you.
Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed my conversation with Hal, you might also like my episode with psychologist Kristin Nef It's called the Science of Self Compassion. And join me next week for a conversation with author and happiness expert Gretchen Ruben. We'll talk about how understanding our personalities can help us unlock a better path to happiness.
See you next week. A Slight Change of Plans.
Is created, written, and executive produced by me Maya Shunker. The Slight Change family includes our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate Parkinson Morgan, our producer Trisha Bovida, and our sound engineer Andrew Vastola. Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks to everyone there, and of course a
very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker.
See you next week.