Science 4 January 2013:
Vol. 339 no. 6115 pp. 96-98
DOI: 10.1126/science.1229294

The End of History Illusion  

  Jordi Quoidbach, Daniel T. Gilbert and Timothy D. Wilson   

Abstract

We measured the personalities, values, and preferences of more than 19,000 people who ranged in age from 18 to 68 and asked them to report how much they had changed in the past decade and/or to predict how much they would change in the next decade. Young people, middle-aged people, and older people all believed they had changed a lot in the past but would change relatively little in the future. People, it seems, regard the present as a watershed moment at which they have finally become the person they will be for the rest of their lives. This “end of history illusion” had practical consequences, leading people to overpay for future opportunities to indulge their current preferences.

Face Retirement

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Merrill Edge have launched Face Retirement, a social tool that ages a picture of consumers, enabling them to see how they will look in the future.

"In a Stanford University experiment, people who saw age-enhanced images of themselves were more likely to save more for retirement, compared to those who weren't exposed to their future selves," said Alok Prasad, head of Merrill Edge. "Face Retirement is designed to minimize that gap by giving consumers a preview of their future self, encouraging them to take control of long-term financial planning."

According to a recent CNBC article, individuals who interacted with a happier version of their future self saved even more for retirement. The academic research related to this intervention was published last year in the Journal of Marketing Research.