Possible selves theory of procrastination
Also known as: Future self-continuity
The less connected you feel to your future self, the more readily you sacrifice that stranger's interests for present comfort.
What it means
Future self-continuity is the degree of psychological connectedness and similarity a person feels between their present self and their future self. The core idea is that people who experience their future self as a vivid, continuous extension of who they are now treat that future self's welfare as their own, whereas those who feel disconnected effectively regard the future self as a stranger and discount its interests. Low continuity predicts steeper temporal discounting, more procrastination, less saving, and more unethical short-term behavior, because sacrifices made today benefit someone who feels like another person. Interventions that strengthen the bond — such as viewing age-progressed images of oneself or writing a letter to one's future self — increase patience and farsighted choices. The nuance is that continuity has separable facets of similarity, vividness, and positive regard. It matters as a self-and-identity explanation for why we shortchange our own futures.
Examples
Shown a realistic aged photo of themselves, people allocate more money to retirement, suddenly treating their older self as someone worth providing for.
Booking a 7am flight and back-to-back meetings a month out feels costless — the exhausted person who has to live through that day still registers as someone else.
Skipping the dentist another year costs today's self nothing; the toothache lands on a future self you have not met and feel no particular obligation to protect.
First described in Hal Hershfield and colleagues (2009, 2011).