Your Future Self w/ Hal Hershfield

In this episode, Rory speaks with Hal Hershfield, a professor at UCLA Anderson School of Management and the author of "Your Future Self". They explore the concept of 'Mental Time Traveling' and the science behind creating a vivid visual picture of our future selves to make better decisions today. Hal shares insights on 'Projection Bias' and the 'Extreme Discounting of Future Rewards', explaining how our current state can cloud our future decisions and how our preferences can drastically reverse when faced with immediate rewards. He also discusses the role of the temporal parietal junction in our brains, explaining its crucial role in fostering empathy and perspective-taking, which can help us better understand and empathize with our future selves. Additionally, Hal discusses the role of algorithms in predicting our preferences and the potential of commitment devices we can use as guardrails for our future behavior. Curious about why Hal used images of Matt Damon and Natalie Portman in his research on connecting with our future selves? Ever wondered what the real-life serial killer, who inspired the show 'Dexter', has to do with our future self-concept? Tune in to this episode with renowned research and UCLA Professor Hal Hershfield to find out more.