Daniel Pink explains why people struggle to save money: we see our future selves as different people. Hal Hirschfield's research shows that age-progressed images of yourself increase retirement savings by making that future self feel real and present.
One reason that people don't save money is that they consider their future selves in some ways a different person. Why would I save money for my next-door neighbor? It's like, that's not me. It's similar to that. What Hirschfield did is he had people make decisions about retirement savings 20 years hence or 30 years hence. In one condition, they just made the decision. You have a choice to put away this much money. Do you want to do this? He showed them the piece of software that does age advancing. Here's what you're going to look like in 30 years. Oh. To say, no, this isn't your cousin. This is you. When you do that, people are much more likely to save for retirement. Oh, interesting. Because what you've done is you've closed the gap between thinking of you today and you in 30 years as the same person.
