Imagine the outcome
Our latest chapter on how to make better decisions.
Imagine if there were a way to train your brain to reduce impulsive behavior and help make better decisions for the long term, backed by neuroscience?
Writing recently in the journal Brain Connectivity, researchers say they’ve found support for the idea that you can. The research was led by the Addiction Recovery Research Center at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine.
As the name of the center might imply, the researchers were looking for a way to help people make better health decisions, such as cutting back on impulsivity as part of a therapy for alcohol use disorder.
But the technique they describe—backed up by brain scans—could clearly improve decision making and focus in a host of professional situations, too.
The theory is that practicing “episodic future thinking,” which amounts to vividly imagining positive situations that you’d like to experience down the road, can reduce impulsivity and increase the odds of better long-term decisions.
Research subjects agreed to undergo MRI brain scans while they practiced either episodic future thinking or recent past thinking, which focuses on past events. Then they were presented with simple choices and asked to make decisions.
An example of episodic future thinking cited in the article might be something like:
“In one year, I will be opening my first art gallery in Los Angeles. Against a backdrop of soft music, I can hear the chatter of fellow art enthusiasts as they peruse the brightly colored oil paintings and the fine features of the sculptures. I am feeling proud of my accomplishment and very excited and thankful to provide a space for beauty.”
An example of recent past thinking as used in the study might be:
“Yesterday between 7:00 a.m. and 10 a.m., I was filling my bird feeders at home in my back yard. I could feel the warm sunlight was hitting my arms and eyes as the birds were singing beautiful melodies around me. I was feeling happy that I got to start my day being outside and helping out the animals.”
Finally, an example of the kinds of choices the subjects were presented with:
“Which would you rather choose? $400 now [or] $1,000 in 1 year?”
The key was tracking both the degree to which participants made choices that were geared toward delayed rewards versus immediate rewards, and the ways in which the MRI brain scans determined different cerebral activity.
Sure enough, the study authors say that participants who practiced episodic future thinking showed lower impulsivity in thinking, and “greater ease at more challenging tasks in deciding between immediate and delayed rewards.”
They also saw increased activity and connections in brain regions known as the salience network.
“What we were trying to understand was how episodic future thinking works as a kind of therapeutic approach,” said study co-author Stephen LaConte. “What we found is that training people to think more about their future changed the extent to which they value immediate rewards over those in the future, and we’re seeing related changes in connectivity in key regions of the brain along with that.”
Like a lot of research when applied to the real world, there’s clearly room for more study.
But much as evidence exists that pushing yourself to articulate the worst that could happen can help you overcome anxiety when you’re stuck on a decision, or that you can adopt better habits by improving your surroundings, it’s reassuring to see that you can potentially reduce impulsive decision-making by using episodic future thinking.
It’s also motivating and enjoyable.
Imagine the kinds of outcomes you’d really like to see happen a year or so from now—really imagine them, with the sights and sounds and feelings as vivid as your creativity allows.
Keep your mind’s eye on the prize like that, and you just might find a decision-making edge that helps you make it your reality.
7 other things worth knowing today
The number of confirmed deaths from a devastating magnitude 7.7 earthquake in Myanmar approached 1,700 Sunday and was expected to keep rising as rescue teams and aid agencies struggled to provide relief amid widespread rubble and growing desperation. The military government pleaded for international assistance. (USA Today)
Elon Musk has sold social media site X to his own xAI artificial intelligence company in a $33 billion all-stock deal, the billionaire announced on Friday. Both companies are privately held, which means they are not required to disclose their finances to the public. (Associated Press)
The Trump administration has ordered some French companies with U.S. government contracts to comply with his executive order banning diversity, equity, and inclusion programmes, highlighting the extraterritorial reach of U.S. policies and their potential impact on European corporate practices. (Reuters)
Xiaofeng Wang, a prominent computer scientist who has spent 20 years publishing academic papers on cryptography, privacy, and cybersecurity has gone incommunicado, had his professor profile, email account, and phone number removed by his employer Indiana University, and had his homes raided by the FBI. No one knows why. (ArsTechnica)
Hundreds of emails are being sent to foreign students from the State Department notifying them that their visas have been revoked and they may be removed from the country at any minute. The notice for revocation does not give a reason other than that “additional information became available” after they were granted visitor status. (New York Sun)
Gen Z are terrified of layoffs and the spiraling economy—so they’re copying Steve Jobs and showing up to the office in uniforms. (Fortune)
A ‘ruthless’ guide to flying without bag fees: Here are some tips and tricks for fitting all of your belongings into a personal item. (The Washington Post)
Thanks for reading. Photo by Josh Riemer on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments!
The concept of "future" takes on a different meaning when you're in your 80's. Too much deferred rewards may not be fulfilled. Time, time, time, may not be on our side. So we tend to gather our rosebuds whilst we can..
Bill…another great article! Thought you’d find some value in how intelligence is related to this topic. Also, I’ve often heard the male brain doesn’t mature until 25-30 and the female brain is perhaps 5 years ahead.
“Previous research suggests that higher intelligence is related to better self-control, but the reasons for this link are unknown. Psychologists Noah A. Shamosh and Jeremy R. Gray, from Yale University, and their colleagues, were interested in testing the idea that brain regions supporting short-term memory were a critical link.
“It has been known for some time that intelligence and self-control are related, but we didn’t know why. Our study implicates the function of a specific brain structure, the anterior prefrontal cortex, which is one of the last brain structures to fully mature”, said Dr.
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/why-delaying-gratification-is-smart-a-neural-link-between-intelligence-and-self-control.html