Being able to see yourself in the future is a valuable way of encouraging yourself to save more for that future date. While he was at Yale University, Keith Chen, compared languages that conjugate future tenses (such as English and Romance languages) vs. those that do not (such as Chinese). In Chinese, the verbs reflecting future, past and present are all the same – time is indicated by making a reference to the time (tomorrow, today, yesterday).
Looking at the affluent industrialized countries of the OECD, in 2013 Professor Chen estimated that the difference was five percent more annual savings between countries who native languages have a future tense versus that with no future tense. Similarly comparing data sets of countries in Europe, Asia and Africa, the difference could be as high 25 percent each year. That is huge amount of savings over a lifetime.
You might also think about using virtual reality (or even some very vivid imagination) to help connect – and empathize with – your future self. When you cannot imagine you as an older person, putting aside money for savings can feel like giving money to a stranger at a number of years in the future. This is dangerous. At some point, you will become your future self (as long as you are still alive). How could you not care about that person?
To test that emotional connection, in 2011 Hal Hershfield did two experiments at the Stanford Center for Advancing Decision Making in Aging. The first involved creating avatars that took a current image of the study participant and aged the face similar to the common way in which faces age over time. This visual reflection of the participant was powerful. In the experiment, people who had received the avatars set aside more than double the savings of those who did not have an avatar assigned to them.
Participants who aged their avatars doubled the amount of savings they set aside.
The second experiment was less successful. The researchers created a series of happy vs. sad faces and the participant could see – using a sliding scale – how the amount of savings affected the happy or sad faces. The second experiment clearly provided almost no emotional connection than had the avatars. In the second test, sad-faced participants increased their savings by only seven percent compared to five percent for the control group with no sad faces.
The lesson is clear. If you want to look after your future self, it helps to be able to imagine yourself at a future age.