A team of researchers from the Anderson School of Management of the University of California, in Los Angeles, and the Higher School of Business Administration and Management (ESADE), in Barcelona, seems to have confirmed what many already intuit: deep down , people who think that they will not change much over the years feel better about themselves than those who imagine that in the near future they will have to face very different scenarios from the current ones, whether negative or positive.
To determine this, these experts took a sample of almost 5,000 individuals who in the 1990s had been asked about their degree of satisfaction at work, with their health or relationships, and their expectations for the next decade. Some of her personality traits had also been examined, from her willingness to learn new things to her emotional stability. As explained in a study published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science , the surprise came when scientists compared their answers with those that these people gave on the same questions a decade later.
” We tend to assume that if someone anticipates that they will do well in the future – for example, if they think they will be more compassionate or intelligent – they will probably be happier in a few years, but this is not the case, ” says Joseph Reiff in a statement. , one of the authors of this work. What Reiff and his colleagues found is that, on the contrary, subjects who had indicated that they did not intend to change much in that time felt markedly more satisfied ten years later than those who had imagined that their circumstances would be very different. Likewise, people who expected higher income or who, in general, would improve their economic level, were more unhappy than they had anticipated that such a thing would not change.
Let us not suffer for what has not happened yet
It is not the first time that this question has been speculated. Time magazine collects how in 2002 an essay published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology already showed that fantasizing about what is to come is often negative, among other things because, in the end, it makes us work less to achieve our goals. The authors of this new study indicate that, in the same way, when we think that our life will be very different in the future, we fail to plan it properly and we make worse decisions. But if it is something predictable, we organize ourselves much better – which means, among other things, that we exercise more, eat healthier and deal more adequately with stress -; we also managed to identify obstacles and overcome failures much better.
“Now, the question is to understand why some people think that their lives will not change much over the years and why others predict that they will not be the same in a while; that is, what can make them think so differently about their future selves? ”these researchers point out.
Referencia: Identity Over Time: Perceived Similarity Between Selves Predicts Well-Being 10 Years Later. Joseph S. Reiff et al. Social Psychological and Personality Science. DOI: doi.org/10.1177/1948550619843931
