The psychology of your future self | Dan Gilbert

Summary

The speaker explores why we often regret decisions made in our past, suggesting it's due to a misconception about the power of time. Through studies on personal values, personality traits, and preferences, they reveal a consistent underestimation of future change, termed the 'end of history' illusion. This illusion impacts our decision-making, leading to overpayment for current preferences. The talk emphasizes that change is the only constant in life, and our present selves are as temporary as our past.

Takeaways

• 🤔 We often make decisions that our future selves regret, such as getting tattoos as teenagers that we later pay to remove.
• 🔄 People across different life stages experience change, yet they consistently underestimate the amount of change they will undergo in the next decade.
• ⏳ The 'end of history' illusion refers to the misconception that our personal history has ended and we won't change much from our current state.
• 📊 A study on personal values across different ages shows that people at every age underestimate their future change, with 18-year-olds expecting to change as little as 50-year-olds actually do.
• 🧠 Personality traits, including neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, extraversion, and conscientiousness, also undergo change that people typically underestimate.
• 🎵 Preferences and tastes, like favorite music, are subject to change, yet people predict they will remain stable, leading to overpayment for current interests.
• 💸 Our decision-making is affected by this illusion, as we are willing to pay more for experiences that cater to our current preferences, assuming they will remain constant.
• 🤓 The difficulty in imagining our future selves might contribute to the underestimation of change, as we tend to remember our past selves more easily.
• ⏳ Time is a transformative force that alters our preferences, values, and personalities, but we often only realize this when looking back on past changes.
• 🌟 The present is often perceived as a static point in our lives, but in reality, we are constantly evolving, and change is the only constant in human life.

Q & A

What is the main point the speaker is trying to convey about decision-making and our future selves?

The speaker is trying to convey that we often make decisions that our future selves regret due to a fundamental misconception about the power of time and the illusion that our personal history has just come to an end.

What is the 'end of history' illusion mentioned in the script?

The 'end of history' illusion refers to the tendency for people at every age to vastly underestimate how much change they will experience over the next 10 years, thinking they have become the people they were always meant to be and will not change significantly.

According to the study mentioned, how do people's personal values change over time?

People's personal values do change over time, but the rate of change slows as they age. However, at every age, people underestimate the degree of change they will experience in the next decade.

What is the role of time in shaping our preferences, values, and personalities according to the script?

Time is a powerful force that transforms our preferences, reshapes our values, and alters our personalities. However, we tend to appreciate this only in retrospect and often mistakenly believe that our current state is the final version of ourselves.

How does the speaker illustrate the difference in the way we value our current versus past preferences?

The speaker uses the example of people's willingness to pay for concert tickets to see their current favorite musician versus their favorite from 10 years ago, showing that we overpay for current preferences because we overestimate their stability.

What psychological phenomenon might be responsible for the 'end of history' illusion?

The 'end of history' illusion might be related to the ease of remembering our past selves compared to the difficulty of imagining our future selves, leading us to mistakenly believe that because it's hard to imagine, it's not likely to happen.

Why do we make decisions that our future selves often regret, as per the speaker's perspective?

We make decisions that our future selves often regret because we are under the illusion that we have become the final version of ourselves and will not change significantly, which leads us to overestimate the stability of our current preferences and values.

How does the speaker suggest our perception of time affect our decision-making?

Our perception of time affects our decision-making by leading us to believe that our current preferences, values, and personalities are static, causing us to make choices that we may later regret when we do indeed change over time.

What is the significance of the study on personal values and personality changes over time?

The study on personal values and personality changes over time is significant because it demonstrates the 'end of history' illusion and how our低估 of future changes can impact our decision-making and the satisfaction we derive from our choices.

How does the speaker use the example of favorite musicians to explain our misprediction of future preferences?

The speaker uses the example of favorite musicians to show how we are willing to pay more for current preferences and how this willingness is based on a misprediction of the stability of our tastes over time.

What is the broader implication of the 'end of history' illusion for our understanding of personal growth and change?

The broader implication of the 'end of history' illusion is that it challenges our understanding of personal growth and change, suggesting that we are constantly evolving beings and that the present is not a fixed point but a transient phase in our ongoing development.

Outlines

00:00

🔮 The Illusion of Personal Change

The speaker begins by discussing how decisions made at various stages of life often lead to regret in the future. They introduce the concept of the 'end of history' illusion, where individuals believe they have reached a point where they will not change significantly anymore. This misconception is explored through a study that shows people at all ages underestimate the amount of change they will experience in the next decade. The study compares predictions of future changes in personal values with reports of past changes, revealing a consistent underestimation of change across all age groups. The speaker emphasizes the impact of this illusion on decision-making, suggesting that it leads to overinvestment in current preferences and underappreciation of future changes.

05:01

💸 The Impact of Time on Decision-Making

In the second paragraph, the speaker delves into the practical implications of the 'end of history' illusion on decision-making, particularly in terms of financial choices. They use the example of concert tickets to illustrate how people are willing to pay more to see their current favorite musician in the future than they would to see a past favorite today. This behavior is attributed to an overestimation of the stability of current preferences. The speaker suggests that the difficulty in imagining one's future self, as opposed to remembering one's past, contributes to this bias. They conclude by emphasizing the transformative power of time on our preferences, values, and personalities, and the importance of recognizing that the present is just as temporary as any other point in our lives.

Keywords

💡Decision-making

Decision-making refers to the process of selecting a course of action among several possible alternatives. In the context of the video, it is highlighted as a critical aspect of our lives that can lead to future regret. The speaker discusses how our decisions in the present can be significantly different from what our future selves would choose, emphasizing the importance of considering the long-term implications of our choices.

💡Regret

Regret is a feeling of sadness or disappointment over something that has happened or been done, typically a loss or missed opportunity. The video script uses the concept of regret to illustrate the disconnect between our current decisions and the preferences of our future selves, as seen in examples such as young people removing tattoos they once wanted or middle-aged individuals divorcing those they once married.

💡End of history illusion

The 'end of history' illusion is a cognitive bias where individuals believe that they have become the person they were meant to be and will not change significantly in the future. The video discusses this illusion as a fundamental misconception about the power of time, leading people to underestimate the amount of change they will undergo, which in turn affects their decision-making.

💡Personal values

Personal values are the principles or standards that an individual considers worthwhile or important in guiding their actions and decisions. The video presents a study showing how these values change over time and how people tend to underestimate these changes, contributing to the 'end of history' illusion and impacting future regret.

💡Personality dimensions

Personality dimensions refer to the various traits or characteristics that make up an individual's personality. The video mentions the 'Big Five' personality traits: neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, extraversion, and conscientiousness. It discusses how people's personalities continue to evolve over time, contrary to their own predictions, which can lead to decisions that future selves may not agree with.

💡Preferences

Preferences are the likes or dislikes that guide an individual's choices. The script uses the example of favorite musicians to demonstrate how our preferences can change significantly over a decade. This change in preferences is a key factor in the 'end of history' illusion, as people often overpay for current preferences, assuming they will remain stable.

💡Change

Change refers to the process of becoming different. The video emphasizes that change is a constant in human life, affecting our values, personalities, and preferences. It argues that while we acknowledge change when looking back, we often fail to anticipate it when making decisions, leading to the 'end of history' illusion.

💡Time

Time is a measure in which events can be ordered from the past through the present into the future. In the video, time is presented as a powerful force that shapes our lives, yet we often misunderstand its impact on our future selves. The speaker suggests that our misconceptions about time play a significant role in our decision-making and the subsequent regret we may feel.

💡Imagination

Imagination is the faculty or action of forming new ideas, images, or concepts of external objects not present to the senses. The video script suggests that our difficulty in imagining our future selves contributes to the 'end of history' illusion. We tend to believe that what we cannot easily imagine is unlikely to happen, which affects our ability to predict and plan for future changes.

💡Retrospect

Retrospect refers to looking back at past events or considering something in the past. The video mentions that it is often in retrospect that we realize the extent of change we have undergone. This realization is crucial in understanding the 'end of history' illusion and the importance of considering the future when making present decisions.

💡Works in progress

The term 'works in progress' is used metaphorically in the video to describe humans as constantly evolving beings. It contrasts with the 'end of history' illusion by emphasizing that we are never truly finished products but are always changing. This concept is central to understanding why our present decisions might not align with our future selves.

Highlights

People often regret decisions they made in the past as they grow older.

We have a misconception about the power of time and its impact on our lives.

Change slows down as we age, but not as much as we think.

The 'end of history' illusion refers to the belief that we have become the people we were meant to be and will not change further.

People underestimate the amount of change they will experience over the next 10 years.

At every age, individuals predict less change for themselves compared to the actual changes reported by those 10 years older.

Personal values shift as we age, and this shift is underestimated by people of all ages.

The five fundamental dimensions of personality are neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, extraversion, and conscientiousness.

People's personalities continue to change, contrary to their predictions.

Preferences, such as best friends, favorite vacations, hobbies, and music, are expected to remain stable but often change over time.

The 'end of history' illusion affects decision-making, leading to overpayment for current preferences.

People are more willing to pay for a concert of their current favorite musician in the future than for their past favorite.

The difficulty of imagining our future selves contributes to the 'end of history' illusion.

Time is a powerful force that transforms our preferences, values, and personalities.

We tend to appreciate the impact of time only when looking back, not when looking forward.

The present is often seen as a magic time where we finally become ourselves, but this is an illusion.

Human beings are constantly changing, and the person we are now is as temporary as all our past selves.

The one constant in our lives is change, contrary to our错觉 that we are static beings.

Transcripts

At every stage of our lives

we make decisions that will profoundly influence

the lives of the people we're going to become,

and then when we become those people,

we're not always thrilled with the decisions we made.

So young people pay good money

to get tattoos removed that teenagers

paid good money to get.

Middle-aged people rushed to divorce people

who young adults rushed to marry.

Older adults work hard to lose

what middle-aged adults worked hard to gain.

On and on and on.

The question is, as a psychologist, that fascinates me is,

why do we make decisions

that our future selves so often regret?

Now, I think one of the reasons --

I'll try to convince you today —

is that we have a fundamental misconception

about the power of time.

Every one of you knows that the rate of change

slows over the human lifespan,

that your children seem to change by the minute

but your parents seem to change by the year.

But what is the name of this magical point in life

where change suddenly goes

from a gallop to a crawl?

Is it teenage years? Is it middle age?

Is it old age? The answer, it turns out,

for most people, is now,

wherever now happens to be.

What I want to convince you today

is that all of us are walking around with an illusion,

an illusion that history, our personal history,

has just come to an end,

that we have just recently become

the people that we were always meant to be

and will be for the rest of our lives.

Let me give you some data to back up that claim.

So here's a study of change in people's

personal values over time.

Here's three values.

Everybody here holds all of them,

but you probably know that as you grow,

as you age, the balance of these values shifts.

So how does it do so?

Well, we asked thousands of people.

We asked half of them to predict for us

how much their values would change in the next 10 years,

and the others to tell us

how much their values had changed in the last 10 years.

And this enabled us to do a really interesting kind of analysis,

because it allowed us to compare the predictions

of people, say, 18 years old,

to the reports of people who were 28,

and to do that kind of analysis throughout the lifespan.

Here's what we found.

First of all, you are right,

change does slow down as we age,

but second, you're wrong,

because it doesn't slow nearly as much as we think.

At every age, from 18 to 68 in our data set,

people vastly underestimated how much change

they would experience over the next 10 years.

We call this the "end of history" illusion.

To give you an idea of the magnitude of this effect,

you can connect these two lines,

and what you see here is that 18-year-olds

anticipate changing only as much

as 50-year-olds actually do.

Now it's not just values. It's all sorts of other things.

For example, personality.

Many of you know that psychologists now claim

that there are five fundamental dimensions of personality:

neuroticism, openness to experience,

agreeableness, extraversion, and conscientiousness.

Again, we asked people how much they expected

to change over the next 10 years,

and also how much they had changed over the last 10 years,

and what we found,

well, you're going to get used to seeing this diagram over and over,

because once again the rate of change

does slow as we age,

but at every age, people underestimate

how much their personalities will change

in the next decade.

And it isn't just ephemeral things

like values and personality.

You can ask people about their likes and dislikes,

their basic preferences.

For example, name your best friend,

your favorite kind of vacation,

what's your favorite hobby,

what's your favorite kind of music.

People can name these things.

We ask half of them to tell us,

"Do you think that that will change over the next 10 years?"

and half of them to tell us,

"Did that change over the last 10 years?"

And what we find, well, you've seen it twice now,

and here it is again:

people predict that the friend they have now

is the friend they'll have in 10 years,

the vacation they most enjoy now is the one

they'll enjoy in 10 years,

and yet, people who are 10 years older all say,

"Eh, you know, that's really changed."

Does any of this matter?

Is this just a form of mis-prediction that doesn't have consequences?

No, it matters quite a bit, and I'll give you an example of why.

It bedevils our decision-making in important ways.

Bring to mind right now for yourself

your favorite musician today

and your favorite musician 10 years ago.

I put mine up on the screen to help you along.

Now we asked people

to predict for us, to tell us

how much money they would pay right now

to see their current favorite musician

perform in concert 10 years from now,

and on average, people said they would pay

129 dollars for that ticket.

And yet, when we asked them how much they would pay

to see the person who was their favorite

10 years ago perform today,

they say only 80 dollars.

Now, in a perfectly rational world,

these should be the same number,

but we overpay for the opportunity

to indulge our current preferences

because we overestimate their stability.

Why does this happen? We're not entirely sure,

but it probably has to do

with the ease of remembering

versus the difficulty of imagining.

Most of us can remember who we were 10 years ago,

but we find it hard to imagine who we're going to be,

and then we mistakenly think that because it's hard to imagine,

it's not likely to happen.

Sorry, when people say "I can't imagine that,"

they're usually talking about their own lack of imagination,

and not about the unlikelihood

of the event that they're describing.

The bottom line is, time is a powerful force.

It transforms our preferences.

It reshapes our values.

It alters our personalities.

We seem to appreciate this fact,

but only in retrospect.

Only when we look backwards do we realize

how much change happens in a decade.

It's as if, for most of us,

the present is a magic time.

It's a watershed on the timeline.

It's the moment at which we finally

become ourselves.

Human beings are works in progress

that mistakenly think they're finished.

The person you are right now

is as transient, as fleeting and as temporary

as all the people you've ever been.

The one constant in our life is change.

Thank you.

(Applause)