The Future and Delayed Rewards

"Taken together, our results reveal that vividly imagining the future reduced impulsive choice," concludes Dr. Peters. Jan Peters and Christian Büchel report in the April 15, 2010 issue of Neuron about their study concerning imagining the future before making a delayed gratification choice.

The results seem intuitive, but its good to know intuition can be backed by investigation. Individuals who were asked to vividly imagine what their plans were over the very short term, 30 to 45 days. Then they were asked to decide if they wanted €20 now or €35 forty-five days from now. Thinking about the future first significantly increased the amount of delayed gratification, with more folks deciding to wait than the control group that was not asked to consider the future.

The implications for leadership are clear. Constantly inviting folks to think about the meaning of what's ahead, in vivid, compelling terms, is essential in helping all of us look for labor rewards later than in an immediate sense. The idea that you can communicate about the future in mere programmatic or project update terms likely will not produce the results of more vivid imagery.