The effect of future self-continuity on delaying immediate gratification. A virtual reality experiment

Abstract

Empirical evidence shows that individuals have present-biased preferences, namely they put more weight on the present than on the future and their preferences are dynamically inconsistent. The lack of connectedness to the future self was proposed by Parfit (1971) as a possible explanation of this behavior. In our experiment we study the effect of experiencing future self-continuity in a CAVE automatic virtual environment on delaying immediate gratification. Participants choose between sooner or later monetary options and we find that they decide to differ with higher probability after virtual reality exposure.