Interacting With Your Future Self Can Stimulate Future Orientation: Future Self-Identification as Working Mechanism of an Intervention

Future orientation can contribute to positive development and act as a buffer against self-defeating behaviors. To stimulate future orientation, research has proposed strengthening identification with the future self. Therefore, we examined 1) whether changes in future self-identification are related to concurrent changes in future orientation, and 2) whether future self-identification can function as an intervention mechanism. To this end, we implemented an intervention (FutureU) and conducted a Randomized Controlled Trial with three arms: 1) FutureU smartphone app condition, 2) FutureU Virtual Reality condition, and 3) an active goal-setting control condition. First-year university students (N = 321) completed questionnaires at baseline, during the intervention, and immediately after the intervention. Results showed that increases in two of the components of future self-identification, i.e., vividness of and connectedness to the future self, predicted concurrent increases in future orientation. A third component, valence toward the future self, was not related to changes in future orientation. The FutureU intervention stimulated vividness of, valence toward, and connectedness to the future self, but only vividness mediated the intervention’s effect on future orientation. We conclude that future self-identification can function as a working mechanism to improve future orientation, in which having a vivid image of this future self plays an important role in particular.