Will ‘Future Me’ Be Happy With (Insert Here)? Beware: It’s Only an Illusion
It goes without question that we hope to construct the utmost version of ourselves as we pursue our future endeavours. Therefore, we dedicate much of our time trying to make important decisions, with hopes that they will eventually lead to the happiness our future selves desire. However, when we reach the later stages of our lives, we tend to be unhappy with many of the decisions and sacrifices we’ve made. “If I could go back, I would do things differently” is certainly not an uncommon thing to say or hear. So, why does it seem so difficult, for many, to make the right decisions for their future? Believe it or not, we tend to overestimate the stability of our rather complex lives. Therefore, the decisions we make now may be inconsistent with the people we will become.
In his TED talk, “The Psychology of Your Future Self,” Dan Gilbert, an expert in the field of psychology, presents research suggesting that humans have a ‘fundamental misconception of time.’ In general, we understand that the rate of change we experience in our lives decreases as we age. However, a between-subjects study has demonstrated that when half of the participants were asked to predict the amount of change they would experience in the next 10 years of their lives (in terms of their basic values, personality traits and personal preferences), they predicted a rate of change much slower than the change the other half of the participants actually experienced within the last 10 years.
To clarify the results, Gilbert provides an example that someone who is 18 years old will predict a rate of change between now and the age of 28 that is much slower than the rate of change someone who’s 28 actually experienced since the age of 18. These results suggest that humans believe that the people they are now are essentially the people they’ll be for the rest of their lives. This is known as the end-of-history illusion and only when looking back do they see how much change they’ve actually undergone. In other words, it is easier to remember something that happened in the past than to imagine something happening in the future, which is why some decisions are so difficult to make.
Evidently, the decisions that don’t require a future-oriented mindset are more consistent with our current selves and are simply much easier to make — we have many factors, such as current and past situations, moment-by-moment emotions and immediate feedback, that can help us assess the best form of action. However, in the attempt to gauge our future, these same factors are essentially irrelevant. What about using psychological tests to get a sense of where we’re headed? They may be tempting to use when employers want to assess your future performance in the company, when guidance counsellors want to give students an idea about which career is right for them or when you would like to determine your compatibility with your companion. However, the results on these tests may not be as sound as they seem because psychological tests are essentially reinforcing the decisions we would be able to make on our own; they base our future on the way we are/feel right now, but we can go through so much change that these tests may have their validity and reliability questioned.
Reference:
https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_you_are_always_changing?language=en#t-14938
