Now or Later: The Effects of Thinking About the Future More Concretely on Long-Term Decision-Making (A Structured Abstract)

Almost 35 % of Americans are considered to be obese (Center for Disease Control 2015), and more than half of Americans will not have enough savings to maintain their accustomed standard of living upon retirement (Porter 2015). Though consumers may have the best of intentions, research indicates that they often miss the mark when making long-term decisions. In this research, we investigate a new method for improving consumers’ long-term decisions by encouraging them to think about their future more concretely.