3), used a gambling task to investigate the importance of risks and rewards for decisions about the near and far future. The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology (Vol. Now, a new study by New York University psychologists Michael Sagristano and Yaacov Trope, PhD, and Tel Aviv University psychologist Nira Liberman, PhD, suggests that when deciding on future courses of action, we tend to overemphasize abstract, high-level goals and ignore the concrete, low-level steps needed to reach them.Īs a result, our future obligations can turn out to be far riskier, more difficult and more time-consuming than we had imagined. As Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, PhD, puts it: 'We're babysitters or caretakers or providers for our future selves, but we don't always do such a great job of it.' No surprise, then, that when it comes to making choices for the people we will be a month, a year or a decade from now, even the best of us can falter.

Looking out for ourselves from moment to moment is hard enough.

Gambles safe bet