36 / Rotman Management Spring 20 19discontinuation, with only a 10–20 per cent attenuation of their
benefits per year.
Finally, similar results have been generated by offering ‘re-
gret lotteries’ — lotteries requiring measurable behaviour change
by a given date to win. Regret lotteries have been effective at
encouraging sustained weight loss and smoking cessation.
- INTERVENE AT OPPORTUNE TIMES. Finally, the timing of an inter-
vention matters. Research on ‘the fresh start effect’ shows that
people are more prone to engage in beneficial behaviours like
exercising, searching for information about dieting on Google,
and creating a commitment contract on the website Stickk.com
at the start of cycles like the beginning of a new week, month,
year or following birthdays and holidays.
In closing
When our daily, routine choices are sub-optimal, they can under-
mine just about every conceivable life outcome. And when poor
choices accumulate, they particularly harm populations with
fewer resources and less ‘slack’ — for whom seemingly trivial
mistakes can spiral with remarkable speed (e.g., a small ailment
goes untreated and becomes debilitating; the interest on small,
unpaid debts accumulates to produce financial insolvency; a fail-
ing grade makes it difficult to justify studying for a degree over
working full-time).
Sadly, adversity itself exacts a hefty physiological and psy-
chological toll: When individuals perceive that the future is un-
certain and threatening, they become biased towards meeting
their short-term needs versus working towards long-term goals.How to Induce Future-Focused Thinking
Present-bias, or the tendency to over-weigh immediate gratifica-
tion while under-weighing the long-term implications of a choice,
is responsible for many errors in judgment. Specifically, present-
biased thinking has been blamed for societal problems ranging
from obesity to under-saving for retirement. Following are a
series of nudges designed to promote future-focused thinking in
order to reduce the pernicious effects of near-sightedness.CHOOSE IN ADVANCE. One means of reducing biases related
to near-sightedness is prompting individuals to make decisions
well in advance of the moment when those decisions will take
effect. This strategy is impactful because of people’s tendency to
make less impulsive, more reasoned decisions when contemplat-
ing the future than the present. Choosing in advance has been
shown to increase support for wise policies requiring sacrifices,
to increase charitable giving, to contribute to increases in retire-
ment savings, and to increase the healthfulness of consumers’
food choices.
Another result of choosing in advance is that choices are
made in a higher construal level mindset, which means they focus
more on abstract (e.g. why?) rather than concrete objectives
(e.g. how?). This has other by-products, however — for example,
higher construal leads to greater stereotyping. Therefore, an
important caveat to choosing in advance is that it may lead to
greater discrimination against women and minorities, as demon-
strated in a field study of decisions on whether to grant prospec-
tive graduate students requests for meetings.INCLUDE A PRE-COMMITMENT. Because people tend to
make more patient and reasoned decisions about the future,
providing opportunities for individuals to both choose in ad-
vance and make a binding decision (or at least decisions where
penalties will accompany reversals) can improve many choices.
Research has shown many benefits from pre-commitment.
For example, substantial savings increases result from provid-
ing individuals with access to bank accounts with commitment
features such as a user-defined savings goal (or date) such that
money cannot be withdrawn before the pre-set goal (or date)
is reached. Although only 28 per cent of those offered such
commitment accounts selected them when equivalent interest
was available on an unconstrained account, average savings
balances increased by 81 percentage points for those custom-
ers of a Philippine bank with access to commitment accounts.
Recent research has also shown that pre-commitment can help
people quit smoking, exercise, achieve workplace goals and
resist repeated temptation in the laboratory. Pre-commitment
is particularly valuable in settings where self-control problems
pit our long-term interests against our short-term desires. When
it comes to food, for example, pre-committing to smaller plates
and glasses can reduce consumption.BUNDLE TEMPTATIONS.. A new twist on pre-commitment
called ‘temptation bundling’ actually solves two self-control
problems at once. Temptation bundling devices allow people
to pre-commit to coupling instantly gratifying activities