Turning I into me: Imagining your future self

Abstract

A widely endorsed belief is that perceivers imagine their present selves using a different representational format than imagining their future selves (i.e., near future=first-person; distant future=third-person). But is this really the case? Responding to the paucity of work on this topic, here we considered how temporal distance influences the extent to which individuals direct their attention outward or inward during a brief imaginary episode. Using a non-verbal measure of visual perspective taking (i.e., letter-drawing task) our results confirmed the hypothesized relation between temporal distance and conceptions of the self. Whereas simulations of an event in the near future were dominated by a first-person representation of the self, this switched to a third-person depiction when the event was located in the distant future. Critically, this switch in vantage point was restricted to self-related simulations. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are considered.

Self-prioritization and perceptual matching: The effects of temporal construal

“…To bolster the temporal manipulation and trigger construal-based processes, participants engaged in periods of guided imagery (i.e., a simulation for each target) during which they formed target-shape associations. Based on prior research, participants were instructed to close their eyes and imagine the self (now, in-one-year, in-forty-years) or a stranger walking along a quiet beach (Macrae et al, 2015 ). 4 After 20 seconds had elapsed, participants were instructed to represent the target of the respective simulation (i.e., self-now, self-one, self-forty, stranger) with a specific geometric shape (i.e., circle, horizontal rectangle, cross, diamond).…”

“… 4 This manipulation of mental imagery has been shown to influence the specificity of self representation, triggering a switch from concrete to abstract self-construal as a function of increasing temporal distance (Macrae et al, 2015 ). …”

Imagining possible selves across time: Characteristics of self-images and episodic thoughts

“…Although distant events may link to distant self-images, only in this study were we able to precisely identify and investigate the effects of temporal distances of the future self-images. Additionally, a recent study from Macrae et al (2015) tested the hypothesised association between temporal distance and visual perspective related to self-focused future events. However, predominant perspective taking was inferred through a simple letter-drawing task.…”

Saving for your future self: The role of imaginary experiences

“…These findings support the prediction that the visual perspective adopted during futurerelated imagery can influence saving decisions. Not only did participants prefer third-person (vs. first-person) imagery when simulating their distant-future self (Macrae et al, 2015;Pronin & Ross, 2006), adoption of this vantage point also increased saving rates by around 17% (i.e., £170, ~$255).…”

“…Instead, simply seeing oneself in the future as an older adult may be sufficient to prioritize saving over spending (see also Hershfield et al, 2011). Accordingly, exploiting the demonstration that third-person (vs. first-person) imagery tends to be the favored vantage point when events in the distant future are simulated (Macrae et al, 2015;Pronin & Ross, 2006), our first experiment explored the effects of visual perspective on people's saving/spending decisions.…”