Thinking About Distant Future Self Leads to Better Current Task Performance Through Higher Future Self-Appraisals

Abstract

Abstract: People tend to appraise their distant future self better than their near future self ( future self-enhancement effect). An open question is whether this tendency has implications for current performance. In two sets of experiments ( N = 554), after envisioning their near or distant future, participants made future self-appraisals and performed an anagram task. We observed that future self-enhancement effect leads to better task performance, regardless of whether the future self was appraised in an absolute (Experiment 1a) or comparative (Experiment 1b) way. Experiment 2a additionally revealed that future self-enhancement effect might facilitate better task performance through increased current self-evaluations. In each study, future self-enhancement effect suppressed the negative, direct impact of envisioning one’s distant (vs. near) future on task performance.