To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others

by Daniel H. Pink

But Hal Hershfield, a social psychologist at New York University, thought the barrier to moving people to save for retirement might be something else altogether. Working with six far-flung colleagues, he conducted a series of studies to test a different hypothesis. In one experiment, Hershfield and team had each of their participants strap on a virtual reality headset. Half the participants saw a digital representation of themselves—an avatar—for about a minute and then had a brief conversation with a digital representation of a researcher. The other half also saw an avatar of themselves through the headset. But for this group, researchers used a computer software package that ages faces to create an avatar that showed what the participant would look like at age seventy. This group gazed at the seventy-year-old version of themselves for about a minute and then had the same brief conversation with the researcher’s avatar. Afterward, the experimenters gave both groups a money allocation task. Imagine, they told the participants, that you’ve just received an unexpected $1,000. How would you allocate the money among the following four options? “Use it to buy something nice for someone special.” “Invest it in a retirement fund.” “Plan a fun and extravagant occasion.” “Put it in a checking account.” Those who saw images of their current selves (call them the “Me Now” group) directed an average of $80 into the retirement account. Those who saw images of their future selves (the “...