Attitudes towards the Future

1
Attitudes towards the Future

• Advanced Social Psychology
• Paul Sparks 12.11.2004

2
Themes

• Undervaluing future outcomes?
• Mispredicting our future preferences
• Controlling our future behaviour
• Mispredicting our behaviour in the future
• Mispredicting our reactions to future events
• Myopia
• Construing future actions

3
The dominance of the present

• many who are capable of the higher pleasures,
  occasionally, under the influence of temptation,
  postpone them to the lowerMen often, from
  infirmity of character, make their election for
  the nearer good, though they know it to be the
  less valuableThey pursue sensual indulgences to
  the injury of health, though perfectly aware that
  health is the greater good
• (J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism)

4
Which would you prefer?

• 1
• 100 28 days from now
• 2
• 120 31 days from now

• 1
• 100 now
• 2
• 120 three days from now

5
Discounting

• People discount the value of future rewards, i.e.
  they devalue future rewards
• Discount rates can be very high

• People distribute their resources between the
  present, the near future and the remote future on
  the basis of a wholly irrational preference. When
  they have a choice between two satisfactions,
  they will not necessarily choose the larger of
  the two, but will often devote themselves to
  producing or obtaining a small one now in
  preference to a much larger one some years hence
  (Pigou, 1920, cited in Ainslie, 1992)

6
Footnote related perspectives

• Individual difference factors The Zimbardo Time
  Perspective Inventory assesses present and future
  time perspective. Both, for example, have been
  related to (self-reports of) substance use.
• Socioeconomic factors e.g. Concern for future
  health is a luxury item all the efforts of the
  poor and the unemployed are needed to cope with
  more pressing immediate problems (Rose, 1992,
  p.2)
• Cultural factors e.g. Lasch (1979) suggests that
  there has been a cultural shift in peoples
  attitudes towards the future To live for the
  moment is the prevailing passion to live for
  yourself, not for your predecessors or posterity.
  We are fast losing the sense of historical
  continuity, the sense of belonging to a
  succession of generations originating in the past
  and stretching into the future (p.5)As the
  future becomes menacing and uncertain, only fools
  put off until tomorrow the fun they can have
  today. A profound shift in our sense of time has
  transformed work habits, values, and the
  definition of success (p.53)
• Physiological? factors Alcohol myopia.

7
Mispredicting our future preferences

• E.g. Kahnemann, D. Snell, J. (1992). Predicting
  a changing taste do people know what they will
  like. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 5,
  187-200.
• E.g. Loewenstein, G. Schkade, D. (1999).
  Wouldnt it be nice? Predicting future feelings.
  In D. Kahnemann, E. Diener N. Schwartz (Eds),
  Well-Being the Foundations of Hedonic
  Psychology. New York Russell Sage Foundation.
  (People often hold incorrect intuitive theories
  about the determination of happiness, which in
  turn lead to errors when predictions are based on
  them p.85)

8
George Ainslie hyperbolic discounting
9
Controlling our future behaviourUlysses and the
Sirens- the classic(al) example of precommitment

• You for your part must bind me with galling
  ropes as I stand upright against the mast-stay,
  with the rope ends tied to the mast itself then
  I shall stay there immovably. And if I beg and
  beseech you to set me free, you must bind me hard
  with more ropes again (Homer, The Odyssey)

10
George Ainslie precommitting devices

• Precommitting devices are devices that people
  employ to influence their future motives or to
  place physical limitations on future behaviour
• Extrapsychic devices
• Attention control
• Emotion control
• Personal rules

11
Shelley Taylor (1996) - the importance of mental
simulation

• the imitative representation of the process of
  an event or a series of events
• - a significant coping and self-regulatory
  resource
• -when thought is translated into concrete mental
  simulations, the likelihood of action consistent
  with the simulation is substantially increased
• -they make events seem true or likely they
  yield plans they prompt affective responses
  and, in so doing, they enhance behavioral
  confirmation
• outcome simulations, process simulations and
  process-outcome simulations

12
Shelley Taylor (1996) cont. - an empirical example

• Method
• Process simulation group - instructed to simulate
  the process of studying for an exam in such a way
  that it would lead to a positive outcome
• Outcome simulation group - instructed to simulate
  a positive exam outcome
• Process outcome simulation group
• Control group - simply kept track of their hours
  of study

• Results
• Outcome simulation group - (i) higher initial /
  later motivation to study (ii) net gain of 2
  points in their final exam
• Process simulation group - (i) least anxious and
  worried the night before the exam (ii) began
  studying earlier studied for more hours (iii)
  net gain of 8 points in their final exam

13
Sherman and Anderson (1986) - attendance at
psychotherapy sessions

• Method
• Group A imagined themselves attending at least
  four therapy sessions, and explained why they
  (hypothetically) did so
• Group B imagined and explained themselves
  attending at least four therapy sessions, and
  explicitly stated their expectations for doing so
• Group C imagined and explained an irrelevant
  event

• Results
• Groups A B had lower dropout rates than Group C
  and lower dropout rates than the historical
  base rate

14
Peter Gollwitzer implementation intentions

• Goal intentions - specify a desired end-state,
  e.g. I intend to achieve X
• Implementation intentions - incorporate goal
  directed behaviour e.g. I intend to do X when
  situation Y is encountered
• Example Gollwitzer (1993) on students Christmas
  vacation plans!!

15
Peter Gollwitzer The Model of Action Phases
16
Mispredicting our behaviour in the future

• See Buehler, Griffin Ross (1994)!

17
Mispredicting our reactions to future events

• The durability bias. Gilbert and Wilson (2000)
  suggest that people will often overestimate the
  duration of their emotional reactions to future
  events e.g. Wilson, Meyers Gilbert (1999)
  found that Democrat supporters said (before the
  election) that they would be happier in the week
  following a Bill Clinton victory than they
  actually were (in fact, they were no happier).
  The opposite pattern occurred for Republican
  supporters.
• Immune neglect. Gilbert et al. (1998) - people
  fail to realize how much they will adapt to
  negative events that they experience in the
  future.
• Focalism. Wilson et al. (2000) - people focus too
  much on particular events (those which are
  readily accessible) and neglect the impact that
  other events may have. How does this relate to
  the planning fallacy?
• Why is the durability bias important important?
  people typically wish for and work toward events
  that they believe will cause lasting happiness,
  not just a moments pleasure. If they
  overestimate how long their pleasure will last,
  they might be working toward the wrong things
  (Wilson et al., 2000, p.822)

18
Steele (1990). Alcohol myopia its prized and
dangerous effects

• Alcohol impairs judgement and thought
• Alcohol myopia - a state of shortsightedness in
  which superficially understood, immediate aspects
  of experience have a disproportionate influence
  on behaviour and emotion
• Alcohol myopia - restricts attention and thought
  to the most salient cues in a setting
• Alcohol intoxication also reduces our ability to
  process and extract meaning from the cues and
  information we do perceive
• See MacDonald et al. (1995)!

19
Concluding thoughts.

• Life wouldnt be worth living if I worried over
  the future as well as the present
• W. Somerset Maugham (1915)
• When the aversive consequences of otherwise
  rewarding lifestyles are delayed and accumulate
  imperceptibly, people can become wilful agents of
  their own self-destruction Widespread pursuit
  of activities that maximize personal rewards can
  produce harmful consequences that must be borne
  by all. (Bandura, 1977).
•