PSY 348 Chapter Notes - Chapter 19: Precommitment, Intertemporal Choice, Time Preference
10 May 2018
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PSY 348 – Psychology of Self Control
Reading #19 – April 17, 2018
Increasing Saving Behavior Through Age-Progressed Renderings of Future Self | Hershfield et al (2011)
Abstract and Intro
- People fail to save retirement
- Removing lure of immediate rewards by precommting to decisions/elaborating on value of future
rewards can make decisions future oriented
- Studies allowed subj to interact w/ age-progressed renderings of selves to test whether will cause
them to allocate more resources to failure
- Discounting of futre explained by hyperbolic/qusi-hyperbolic funct
a. Extreme discounting believed to occur in sit which immediate gains traded off against LT
ones
i. Would berejected w/ enough planning
- 2 remedies
a. Reduce lure of immediacy and amount that can be consumed in present thru precommitment
to starting to save at later date
b. Increase appeal of waiting to spend and the expected enjoyment of future spending by dir
people’s imagination to future sues for money
- Third possible remedy connection b/w present and future self
a. Have ppl interact w/ phtorealistic age-progressed rendering of selves allocate more
resources to future
- Important determinant of intertemporal choice = person’s sense of psychological connection w/
his/her future self
- Hyp – people who feel as though future self = diff person fail to acknowledge connection and fail
to identify with themselves in future
- People who show greatest neural activation diff b/w thoughts about current and future self show
steepest discount rates
Study 1 – Immersive VR and Future Self
- One group saw digital rep of their current selves, other group saw age-morphed version of future
selves
- HYP = participants who saw age-morphed vers of future selves would be more likely to allocate
$ to hypothetical retirement savings account after exposure than those that saw current vers of
self
- Subj told to imagine they just unexpectedly received $1000 and were asked to allocate among 4
options
a. Use it to buy something nice for someone special
b. Invest in retirement fund
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Increasing saving behavior through age-progressed renderings of future self | hershfield et al (2011) Removing lure of immediate rewards by precommting to decisions/elaborating on value of future rewards can make decisions future oriented. Studies allowed subj to interact w/ age-progressed renderings of selves to test whether will cause them to allocate more resources to failure. Discounting of futre explained by hyperbolic/qusi-hyperbolic funct: extreme discounting believed to occur in sit which immediate gains traded off against lt ones. Third possible remedy connection b/w present and future self: have ppl interact w/ phtorealistic age-progressed rendering of selves allocate more resources to future. Important determinant of intertemporal choice = person"s sense of psychological connection w/ his/her future self. Hyp people who feel as though future self = diff person fail to acknowledge connection and fail to identify with themselves in future. People who show greatest neural activation diff b/w thoughts about current and future self show steepest discount rates.
