Based on the tenets of Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST; Carstensen, 1992, 2006), I propose that time horizons powerfully influence emotion and decision making. When time is perceived as limited people feel a mixture of happiness and sadness, an emotional experience known as poignancy which appears to have positive effects on attention and health. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that the experience of poignancy can be captured both in a laboratory setting and in the real world. Study 3, shows that such experiences—despite being comprised of sadness as well as happiness—direct attention to positive aspects of life. Study 4 demonstrates that the frequency of poignancy is associated with positive health outcomes in older adults.

By contrast, when time is perceived as expansive, and the future seems distant, negative outcomes can result. Drawing on SST as well as work in philosophy (Parfit, 1971, 1987) and economics (Loewenstein, 1996; Schelling, 1984), I propose that a long time horizon produces a weaker emotional connection to the future self, which in turn can result in poor decisions. In Studies 5 and 6, participants rated how similar they felt to their future selves and then completed two different measures of willingness to set aside savings for later. Lower self-reported similarity to the future self was associated with lesser willingness to engage in such saving. Study 7 examined neural activation while participants made trait ratings about their current and future selves. Findings show that those people who exhibited the greatest difference in brain activation when considering their current or future selves saved the least amount of money in a follow-up laboratory task. Finally, Study 8 showed that use of a virtual reality task to minimize the disconnect between the current self and the future self enhances the amount of money people elect to save for the future.