Daniel Stolle
Ten years from now, you will still be you, right? It depends on who you ask, and when. Present You, for one, is not so sure. That much is clear from several studies revealing that we often treat our future selves like complete strangers.
In one, , a psychologist at Princeton University, asked people to make decisions about how much of a disgusting cocktail to drink. Some chose for themselves, some for the next participant and some for themselves in two weeks’ time. When choosing for themselves, people opted for the smallest dose. But they went for a larger amount for another person – and for their future selves.
: thinking about your current self fires up different brain regions than does thinking about your future self, which .
Another study focused on our tendency to value immediate rewards more highly than deferred benefits – what economists call “future discounting”. It’s the reason you struggle to save money or choose the healthy salad. The good news is that by getting better acquainted with Future You, you can make better choices in the here and now.
Read more: Your true self
Who are you? An entity continuous in time, an individual with a personality, a unique bundle of memories? Only now are we truly getting to grips with what our sense of self is and isn’t, and how it can change – insights that could help us live better with ourselves and with others
That was the upshot when …
