Shaping long term thinking

Short term thinking might be OK if you are faced with a charging rhinoceros. In such a circumstance measured reflection on future implications may leave you literally on the horns of a dilemma (if a few hundred kilos of perturbed rhino can be termed a “dilemma”). On the whole though, we are encouraged to take the long view when making decisions. We all acknowledge that long term thinking can avoid injury and discomfort yet often we fail in this aspiration and make short term decisions. Exactly why that happens has been elucidated in a new research paper.

To examine decision making processes researchers conducted two experiments. In the first, they asked university students three weeks before graduation to read a passage that described graduation either as an event that would prompt a major change in their identities or as an event that would prompt only a relatively trivial change. Compared to students who read the passage describing graduation as a small change, those who read a description of the event as a major change were much more likely to make more impatient choices, choosing to receive a gift certificate worth $120 in the next week rather than wait for $240.

In a subsequent study, the authors asked people to evaluate their sense of connectedness and similarity to their future selves. Three weeks later, they were asked them to choose between smaller gift cards they could use right away or larger gift cards that would require waiting. Those who had reported feeling more connected to their future selves made more patient choices and were more willing to wait for a higher-valued gift card.

In real life this translates to people who feel disconnected from their future making short term consumption decisions rather than working to longer term goals. A sinister mind-set might think that a latent mind-set of fear could be created by organisations wanting to promote a consumerist society but that is too Machiavellian for us to entertain here.

A more positive view is that you can make your thinking and choices more long term by connecting to your future self. There are many ways in which you might choose to do that but as an example, you might start by turning off, or not reading, media that preach fear and loathing or which trumpet “falls in consumer sentiment”. Fear of the future will disconnect you from it, so live in the present and dream of pleasant possibilities. Meditation might be a good place to start and perhaps give the ones you love a hug and remind yourself how wonderful life is. It is a wonderful world; connect with it and your thinking will be the better for it.

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