Connecting with Your Future Self: Behavioral Interventions on Decision Making

Future self-continuity has been shown to influence intertemporal choice, with stronger connections to one’s future self promoting beneficial behaviors like saving money and exercising while discouraging procrastination and impulsive consumption. Despite this, limited research has explored how future self-continuity compares with other factors, such as impulsivity, or how the impact of time scale shapes these effects. Additionally, adolescents, who are particularly vulnerable to academic procrastination, remain underrepresented in this research. This thesis addresses these gaps through three studies.In Study 1, we investigate the relationship between future self-continuity and intertemporal choice. Participants recruited through CloudResearch Connect were randomly assigned to one of three time-scale (1 year, 10 years, 30 years) conditions and completed surveys assessing future self-continuity, impulsivity (using the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale), and an incentivized choice task. Study 2 examines the effectiveness of a behavioral intervention, letter exchange, in enhancing future self-continuity. Participants, also recruited via CloudResearch Connect, completed a pre- and post-intervention survey to measure changes in future self-continuity, with the expectation that letter exchange strengthens this connection. Finally, Study 3 employs a field experiment to assess whether the letter exchange intervention can similarly enhance future self-continuity among middle school students and, in turn, reduce academic procrastination.Together, these studies aim to deepen our understanding of the mechanisms driving intertemporal choice and provide actionable insights into interventions that support long-term decision-making in both adolescent and adult populations.