The psychological research on the future self examines the processes and consequences associated with thinking about oneself in the future. People think about their future selves similarly to how they think about other people. The extent to which people feel psychologically connected (e.g., similarity, closeness) to their future self influences how well they treat their future self. When people feel connected to their future self, they are more likely to save for retirement, make healthy decisions, and avoid ethical transgressions. Interventions that increase feelings of connectedness with future selves can improve future-oriented decision making across these domains. Philosophical foundations Psychological research on the future self often attributes its theoretical foundations to the philosopher Derek Parfit. Parfit argued that people might differ in the extent to which they feel similar and connected to themselves in the future. Under Parfit's conceptualization, people act rationally by basing their concern for their future on the degree of connectedness between present and future selves. According to Parfit, it is rational for people who perceive very little connectedness with their future self to act in ways that neglect the future self (e.g., by smoking). The psychological work that followed did not similarly argue for Parfit's normative view but has instead attempted to test the descriptive validity of Parfit's theory. Psychological theory Social psychological and neurological evidence suggests that people think about themselves in the future similarly to how they think about other people. Just as feeling close to others increases prosocial giving, feeling close to one's future self motivates people to delay present gratification in order to benefit themselves in the future. Measuring psychological connectedness Shane Frederick initially tested whether the degree of connectedness with the future self is associated with less discounting of future benefits (in dollar amounts and time). Asking subjects how similar they felt to their future selves on a 1-100 scale, Frederick did not find a statistically significant relationship between the degree of connectedness and discounting of future benefits. However, later researchers argued Frederick did not find a connection because of the way he measured connectedness. In 2009, Hal Hershfield and colleagues introduced a new measurement of psychological connectedness by adapting the Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale, where the relationship between present and future selves is depicted with seven pairs of successively overlapping circles. Using this measurement, Hershfield, as well as Daniel Bartels and Oleg Urminsky, have now demonstrated a