Quinten, Laura: Continuity with Future Selves in Delinquent, Financial, and Health-Related Decision Making. - Bonn, 2020. - Dissertation, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.
Online-Ausgabe in bonndoc: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hbz:5-59691
@phdthesis{handle:20.500.11811/8612,
urn: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hbz:5-59691,
author = {{Laura Quinten}},
title = {Continuity with Future Selves in Delinquent, Financial, and Health-Related Decision Making},
school = {Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn},
year = 2020,
month = sep,

note = {Enhancing people’s future orientation, in particular continuity with their distant future selves, has been claimed as a promising approach to mitigate self-control-related problem behavior in various domains. Two direct replication attempts examined the impact of a brief and subtle manipulation, i.e., writing a 100- to 300-word letter to one’s future self, on delinquent decisions (van Gelder et al., 2013, Study 1) and risky investments (Monroe et al., 2017, Study 1). With samples of N = 314 and N = 463, i.e., 2.5 times the original studies’ sample sizes, the expected effects − fewer delinquent decisions (Study 1) and less risky investments (Study 2) − were not found. Analyses integrating the original studies’ results suggested that the effects are either non-existent or smaller than originally reported, and/or dependent on factors not examined. Study 3 (N = 210), an attempt at a conceptual replication of van Gelder et al. (2015) and specifically an extended version of the letter task, i.e., writing e-mails on future experiences over the course of one week, did not yield relevant effects on unhealthy diet behavior. For several other unhealthy behaviors, such as alcohol consumption or smoking, no informative results could be obtained due to low base rates. Study 4 (N = 211) compared minimal interventions that contained elements of self-affirmation or future orientation in a 2 x 2 longitudinal design. Self-affirmation (but not future orientation) tasks successfully increased physical activity (BF10 = 6.09, p = .005, d = 0.34, 95% CI [0.12, 0.66]). Over the four studies, several measures of future orientation and related constructs were applied to test assumptions about underlying processes − which were largely not confirmed. The manipulation used in Study 2 was the only task that resulted in group differences in vividness of distant future selves (BF10 = 826.66, p < .001, d = 0.41, 95% CI [0.22, 0.59]); there was no effect on general future thinking, trait self-control, or trait future time perspective. All studies follow state-of-the-art guidelines for open science practices and thus provide informative evidence against the assumption that short writing tasks could reliably alter future orientation and/or reduce self-destructive behavior associated with temporal discounting in random online samples. Future research directions are discussed, including paying more attention to context variables and testing less subtle interventions in samples with concrete, myopia-related self-control deficits.},
url = {https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11811/8612}
}

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