Hershfield Hal E, Goldstein Daniel G, Sharpe William F, Fox Jesse, Yeykelis Leo, Carstensen Laura L, Bailenson Jeremy N
Post-doctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2001 Sheridan Rd, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
Assistant Professor of Marketing at London Business School and Principal Research Scientist at Yahoo Research, 110 West 40 Street, 17 Floor, New York, NY 10028, USA.
J Mark Res. 2011 Nov;48:S23-S37. doi: 10.1509/jmkr.48.SPL.S23.
Many people fail to save what they need to for retirement (Munnell, Webb, and Golub-Sass 2009). Research on excessive discounting of the future suggests that removing the lure of immediate rewards by pre-committing to decisions, or elaborating the value of future rewards can both make decisions more future-oriented. In this article, we explore a third and complementary route, one that deals not with present and future rewards, but with present and future selves. In line with thinkers who have suggested that people may fail, through a lack of belief or imagination, to identify with their future selves (Parfit 1971; Schelling 1984), we propose that allowing people to interact with age-progressed renderings of themselves will cause them to allocate more resources toward the future. In four studies, participants interacted with realistic computer renderings of their future selves using immersive virtual reality hardware and interactive decision aids. In all cases, those who interacted with virtual future selves exhibited an increased tendency to accept later monetary rewards over immediate ones.
许多人未能为退休储蓄足够的资金（蒙内尔、韦伯和戈卢布 - 萨斯，2009年）。关于对未来过度贴现的研究表明，通过预先承诺决策来消除即时奖励的诱惑，或者阐述未来奖励的价值，都可以使决策更具未来导向性。在本文中，我们探索了第三条且与之互补的途径，这条途径并非处理当前和未来的奖励，而是关乎当前和未来的自我。与那些认为人们可能由于缺乏信念或想象力而无法认同未来自我的思想家观点一致（帕菲特，1971年；谢林，1984年），我们提出让人们与自己年龄增长后的形象进行互动，将促使他们为未来分配更多资源。在四项研究中，参与者使用沉浸式虚拟现实硬件和交互式决策辅助工具，与自己未来的逼真计算机模拟形象进行互动。在所有情况下，与虚拟未来自我进行互动的人表现出更倾向于接受未来的金钱奖励而非即时奖励。
