Hal E Hershfield
Biographic Data
| ID | 4100900 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Hal E Hershfield |
| GIVEN NAMES | Hal E |
| FAMILY NAME | Hershfield |
| SIGNATURE | HERSHFIELD H E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Los Angeles |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1507-7022 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 56 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Perspective-taking in capital punishment decisions
Perspective-taking has been theorized to be a central psychological process in how people make punishment decisions. However, previous research has only tested theory in low-stakes or hypothetical contexts. The current research describes how jurors perspective-take in real capital punishment trials ( N = 1,198) and tests a series of hypotheses from previous research in a high-stakes, naturalistic context. In examining the predictors of perspectiv…
Addressing climate change with behavioral science: A global intervention tournament in 63 countries
Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interve…
Back to the Present: How Direction of Mental Time Travel Affects Similarity and Saving
Many consumers say they want to save for the future yet struggle to do so. This research examines this saving behavior problem from a persuasive messaging standpoint. With the goal of helping people take better care of their future selves, we build on a stream of research that has found that the way people view their identities over time affects the saving decisions they make. Although past research on similarity judgments across time almost excl…
Adolescent Stressful Life Events Predict Future Self- Connectedness in Adulthood
In this study, we investigate how the accumulation of stressful life events and chronic stressors experienced in adolescence predict young adults’ future self-identification (i.e., connectedness, vividness, and valence of the future self) in a sample of 1482 Swiss youth. Furthermore, we investigate future self-identification as a source of resilience mediating the association between accumulated stressful life events on the one hand, and increase…
Meaningful endings and mixed emotions: The double-edged sword of reminiscence on good times
Meaningful endings lead people to experience mixed emotions, but it is unclear why. We hypothesized that it is in part because meaningful endings lead people to reminisce on good times. In Study 1, college students who took part in our study on their graduation day (vs. a typical day) reported having spent more time that day reminiscing on good times. Moreover, reminiscence on good times partially mediated the effect of graduation on happiness, s…
Having too little or too much time is linked to lower subjective well-being
Many people living in modern society feel like they do not have enough time and are constantly searching for more. But is having limited discretionary time actually detrimental? And can there be downsides of having too much discretionary time? In two large-scale data sets spanning 35,375 Americans and two experiments, we explore the relationship between the amount of discretionary time individuals have and their subjective well-being. We find and…
Beliefs about Whether Spending Implies Wealth
Spending is influenced by many factors. One that has received little attention is the meaning that people give to the act of spending. Spending money might imply that someone is relatively wealthy-since they have money to spend-or relatively poor-since spending can deplete assets. We show that people differ in the extent to which they believe that spending implies wealth (SIW beliefs). We develop a scale to measure these beliefs and find that peo…
Perceptions of Collaborations: How Many Cooks Seem to Spoil the Broth
Workers often work in groups of varying sizes, and those workers’ work is often judged by others. To examine how the two might relate, we first asked respondents to report the optimal number of collaborators for a variety of different tasks, finding substantial variability across tasks (Supplementary Study) that tracked with perceived task complexity (Study 1). Accordingly, framing a given task as more complex made people want more collaborators …
Identity Over Time: Perceived Similarity Between Selves Predicts Well-Being 10 Years Later
When individuals feel similar to their future self, they are more likely to delay present gratification and make plans for the long run. But do these feelings of similarity actually correspond with heightened well-being for the future self? Theoretically, making patient decisions in the present could lead to a future self who is better off and thus more satisfied. Alternatively, perceived overlap with the future self could cause people to continu…
Consumers Make Different Inferences and Choices When Product Uncertainty Is Attributed to Forgetting Rather than Ignorance
When a consumer realizes that information relevant to a consumption decision is missing, such uncertainty can be attributed to ignorance (i.e., the information has never been observed and is unknown) or to memory failure (i.e., the information has been observed and is forgotten). Although research has examined inferences about unknown attributes, no prior work has examined inferences about forgotten attributes. Across six experiments in the lab a…
Financial product sensitivity predicts financial health
Recent research has aimed to understand how people consider financial decisions because they have important consequences for well‐being. Yet existing research has largely failed to examine how attitudes and behaviors vary as a function of the specific financial product (e.g., debt type). We ask to what extent people differentiate between similarly categorized financial products (e.g., debt or investment) as a function of their terms (e.g., intere…
Creative expertise is associated with transcending the here and now
Human imagination is bounded. As situations become more distant in time, place, perspective, and likelihood, they also become more difficult to simulate. What underlies the ability to successfully engage in distal simulations? Here we examine the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying distal simulation by studying individuals known for transcending these limits: creative experts. First, 2 behavioral studies establish that creative experts…
People Who Choose Time Over Money Are Happier
Money and time are both scarce resources that people believe would bring them greater happiness. But would people prefer having more money or more time? And how does one’s preference between resources relate to happiness? Across studies, we asked thousands of Americans whether they would prefer more money or more time. Although the majority of people chose more money, choosing more time was associated with greater happiness—even controlling for e…
On the relationship between positive and negative affect: Their correlation and their co-occurrence
Understanding the nature of emotional experience requires understanding the relationship between positive and negative affect. Two particularly important aspects of that relationship are the extent to which positive and negative affect are correlated with one another and the extent to which they co-occur. Some researchers have assumed that weak negative correlations imply greater co-occurrence (i.e., more mixed emotions) than do strong negative c…
Mental simulation and meaning in life
Mental simulation, the process of self-projection into alternate temporal, spatial, social, or hypothetical realities is a distinctively human capacity. Numerous lines of research also suggest that the tendency for mental simulation is associated with enhanced meaning. The present research tests this association specifically examining the relationship between two forms of simulation (temporal and spatial) and meaning in life. Study 1 uses neuroim…
Friends With My Future Self: Longitudinal Vividness Intervention Reduces Delinquency
In a field experiment, we use a novel method to test whether instilling a greater sense of vividness of the future self motivates people to act in a more future‐oriented way and reduces their delinquent involvement. We manipulate vividness of the future self by having participants, a sample of high‐school youth (N = 133), “befriend” an avatar representing their future self on a social network website. For 7 days, they reply to short messages from…
Seeking Lasting Enjoyment with Limited Money: Financial Constraints Increase Preference for Material Goods over Experiences
Consumers with limited discretionary money face important trade-offs when deciding how to spend it. In the current research, we suggest that feelings of financial constraint increase consumers’ concern about the lasting utility of their purchases, which in turn increases their preference for material goods over experiences. The results of seven studies confirm that the consideration of financial constraints shifts consumers’ preferences toward ma…
Vividness of the Future Self Predicts Delinquency
The tendency to live in the here and now, and the failure to think through the delayed consequences of behavior, is one of the strongest individual-level correlates of delinquency. We tested the hypothesis that this correlation results from a limited ability to imagine one’s self in the future, which leads to opting for immediate gratification. Strengthening the vividness of the future self should therefore reduce involvement in delinquency. We t…
When Feeling Bad Can Be Good: Mixed Emotions Benefit Physical Health Across Adulthood
Traditional models of emotion–health interactions have emphasized the deleterious effects of negative emotions on physical health. More recently, researchers have turned to potential benefits of positive emotions on physical health as well. Both lines of research, though, neglect the complex interplay between positive and negative emotions and how this interplay affects physical well-being. Indeed, recent theoretical work suggests that a strategy…
Short horizons and tempting situations: Lack of continuity to our future selves leads to unethical decision making and behavior
Future self‐continuity: How conceptions of the future self transform intertemporal choice
With life expectancy dramatically increasing throughout much of the world, people have to make choices with a longer future in mind than they ever had to before. Yet, many indicators suggest that undersaving for the long term often occurs: in America, for instance, many individuals will not be able to maintain their preretirement standard of living in retirement. Previous research has tried to understand problems with intertemporal choice by focu…
Increasing Saving Behavior Through Age-Progressed Renderings of the Future Self
Many people fail to save what they will need for retirement. Research on excessive discounting of the future suggests that removing the lure of immediate rewards by precommitting to decisions or elaborating the value of future rewards both can make decisions more future oriented. The authors explore a third and complementary route, one that deals not with present and future rewards but with present and future selves. In line with research that sh…
Seeking Lasting Enjoyment with Limited Money: Financial Constraints Increase Preference for Material Goods over Experiences
Consumers with limited discretionary money face important trade-offs when deciding how to spend it. In the current research, we suggest that feelings of financial constraint increase consumers’ concern about the lasting utility of their purchases, which in turn increases their preference for material goods over experiences. The results of seven studies confirm that the consideration of financial constraints shifts consumers’ preferences toward ma…
Friends With My Future Self: Longitudinal Vividness Intervention Reduces Delinquency
In a field experiment, we use a novel method to test whether instilling a greater sense of vividness of the future self motivates people to act in a more future‐oriented way and reduces their delinquent involvement. We manipulate vividness of the future self by having participants, a sample of high‐school youth (N = 133), “befriend” an avatar representing their future self on a social network website. For 7 days, they reply to short messages from…
Mental simulation and meaning in life
Mental simulation, the process of self-projection into alternate temporal, spatial, social, or hypothetical realities is a distinctively human capacity. Numerous lines of research also suggest that the tendency for mental simulation is associated with enhanced meaning. The present research tests this association specifically examining the relationship between two forms of simulation (temporal and spatial) and meaning in life. Study 1 uses neuroim…
Having too little or too much time is linked to lower subjective well-being
Many people living in modern society feel like they do not have enough time and are constantly searching for more. But is having limited discretionary time actually detrimental? And can there be downsides of having too much discretionary time? In two large-scale data sets spanning 35,375 Americans and two experiments, we explore the relationship between the amount of discretionary time individuals have and their subjective well-being. We find and…
Beliefs about Whether Spending Implies Wealth
Spending is influenced by many factors. One that has received little attention is the meaning that people give to the act of spending. Spending money might imply that someone is relatively wealthy-since they have money to spend-or relatively poor-since spending can deplete assets. We show that people differ in the extent to which they believe that spending implies wealth (SIW beliefs). We develop a scale to measure these beliefs and find that peo…
Creative expertise is associated with transcending the here and now
Human imagination is bounded. As situations become more distant in time, place, perspective, and likelihood, they also become more difficult to simulate. What underlies the ability to successfully engage in distal simulations? Here we examine the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying distal simulation by studying individuals known for transcending these limits: creative experts. First, 2 behavioral studies establish that creative experts…
Back to the Present: How Direction of Mental Time Travel Affects Similarity and Saving
Many consumers say they want to save for the future yet struggle to do so. This research examines this saving behavior problem from a persuasive messaging standpoint. With the goal of helping people take better care of their future selves, we build on a stream of research that has found that the way people view their identities over time affects the saving decisions they make. Although past research on similarity judgments across time almost excl…
Future self‐continuity: How conceptions of the future self transform intertemporal choice
With life expectancy dramatically increasing throughout much of the world, people have to make choices with a longer future in mind than they ever had to before. Yet, many indicators suggest that undersaving for the long term often occurs: in America, for instance, many individuals will not be able to maintain their preretirement standard of living in retirement. Previous research has tried to understand problems with intertemporal choice by focu…
Increasing Saving Behavior Through Age-Progressed Renderings of the Future Self
Many people fail to save what they will need for retirement. Research on excessive discounting of the future suggests that removing the lure of immediate rewards by precommitting to decisions or elaborating the value of future rewards both can make decisions more future oriented. The authors explore a third and complementary route, one that deals not with present and future rewards but with present and future selves. In line with research that sh…
Short horizons and tempting situations: Lack of continuity to our future selves leads to unethical decision making and behavior
Vividness of the Future Self Predicts Delinquency
The tendency to live in the here and now, and the failure to think through the delayed consequences of behavior, is one of the strongest individual-level correlates of delinquency. We tested the hypothesis that this correlation results from a limited ability to imagine one’s self in the future, which leads to opting for immediate gratification. Strengthening the vividness of the future self should therefore reduce involvement in delinquency. We t…
When Feeling Bad Can Be Good: Mixed Emotions Benefit Physical Health Across Adulthood
Traditional models of emotion–health interactions have emphasized the deleterious effects of negative emotions on physical health. More recently, researchers have turned to potential benefits of positive emotions on physical health as well. Both lines of research, though, neglect the complex interplay between positive and negative emotions and how this interplay affects physical well-being. Indeed, recent theoretical work suggests that a strategy…
Mental simulation and meaning in life
Mental simulation, the process of self-projection into alternate temporal, spatial, social, or hypothetical realities is a distinctively human capacity. Numerous lines of research also suggest that the tendency for mental simulation is associated with enhanced meaning. The present research tests this association specifically examining the relationship between two forms of simulation (temporal and spatial) and meaning in life. Study 1 uses neuroim…
Friends With My Future Self: Longitudinal Vividness Intervention Reduces Delinquency
In a field experiment, we use a novel method to test whether instilling a greater sense of vividness of the future self motivates people to act in a more future‐oriented way and reduces their delinquent involvement. We manipulate vividness of the future self by having participants, a sample of high‐school youth (N = 133), “befriend” an avatar representing their future self on a social network website. For 7 days, they reply to short messages from…
Seeking Lasting Enjoyment with Limited Money: Financial Constraints Increase Preference for Material Goods over Experiences
Consumers with limited discretionary money face important trade-offs when deciding how to spend it. In the current research, we suggest that feelings of financial constraint increase consumers’ concern about the lasting utility of their purchases, which in turn increases their preference for material goods over experiences. The results of seven studies confirm that the consideration of financial constraints shifts consumers’ preferences toward ma…
People Who Choose Time Over Money Are Happier
Money and time are both scarce resources that people believe would bring them greater happiness. But would people prefer having more money or more time? And how does one’s preference between resources relate to happiness? Across studies, we asked thousands of Americans whether they would prefer more money or more time. Although the majority of people chose more money, choosing more time was associated with greater happiness—even controlling for e…
On the relationship between positive and negative affect: Their correlation and their co-occurrence
Understanding the nature of emotional experience requires understanding the relationship between positive and negative affect. Two particularly important aspects of that relationship are the extent to which positive and negative affect are correlated with one another and the extent to which they co-occur. Some researchers have assumed that weak negative correlations imply greater co-occurrence (i.e., more mixed emotions) than do strong negative c…
Financial product sensitivity predicts financial health
Recent research has aimed to understand how people consider financial decisions because they have important consequences for well‐being. Yet existing research has largely failed to examine how attitudes and behaviors vary as a function of the specific financial product (e.g., debt type). We ask to what extent people differentiate between similarly categorized financial products (e.g., debt or investment) as a function of their terms (e.g., intere…
Creative expertise is associated with transcending the here and now
Human imagination is bounded. As situations become more distant in time, place, perspective, and likelihood, they also become more difficult to simulate. What underlies the ability to successfully engage in distal simulations? Here we examine the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying distal simulation by studying individuals known for transcending these limits: creative experts. First, 2 behavioral studies establish that creative experts…
Perceptions of Collaborations: How Many Cooks Seem to Spoil the Broth
Workers often work in groups of varying sizes, and those workers’ work is often judged by others. To examine how the two might relate, we first asked respondents to report the optimal number of collaborators for a variety of different tasks, finding substantial variability across tasks (Supplementary Study) that tracked with perceived task complexity (Study 1). Accordingly, framing a given task as more complex made people want more collaborators …
Identity Over Time: Perceived Similarity Between Selves Predicts Well-Being 10 Years Later
When individuals feel similar to their future self, they are more likely to delay present gratification and make plans for the long run. But do these feelings of similarity actually correspond with heightened well-being for the future self? Theoretically, making patient decisions in the present could lead to a future self who is better off and thus more satisfied. Alternatively, perceived overlap with the future self could cause people to continu…
Consumers Make Different Inferences and Choices When Product Uncertainty Is Attributed to Forgetting Rather than Ignorance
When a consumer realizes that information relevant to a consumption decision is missing, such uncertainty can be attributed to ignorance (i.e., the information has never been observed and is unknown) or to memory failure (i.e., the information has been observed and is forgotten). Although research has examined inferences about unknown attributes, no prior work has examined inferences about forgotten attributes. Across six experiments in the lab a…
Meaningful endings and mixed emotions: The double-edged sword of reminiscence on good times
Meaningful endings lead people to experience mixed emotions, but it is unclear why. We hypothesized that it is in part because meaningful endings lead people to reminisce on good times. In Study 1, college students who took part in our study on their graduation day (vs. a typical day) reported having spent more time that day reminiscing on good times. Moreover, reminiscence on good times partially mediated the effect of graduation on happiness, s…
Having too little or too much time is linked to lower subjective well-being
Many people living in modern society feel like they do not have enough time and are constantly searching for more. But is having limited discretionary time actually detrimental? And can there be downsides of having too much discretionary time? In two large-scale data sets spanning 35,375 Americans and two experiments, we explore the relationship between the amount of discretionary time individuals have and their subjective well-being. We find and…
Beliefs about Whether Spending Implies Wealth
Spending is influenced by many factors. One that has received little attention is the meaning that people give to the act of spending. Spending money might imply that someone is relatively wealthy-since they have money to spend-or relatively poor-since spending can deplete assets. We show that people differ in the extent to which they believe that spending implies wealth (SIW beliefs). We develop a scale to measure these beliefs and find that peo…
Adolescent Stressful Life Events Predict Future Self- Connectedness in Adulthood
In this study, we investigate how the accumulation of stressful life events and chronic stressors experienced in adolescence predict young adults’ future self-identification (i.e., connectedness, vividness, and valence of the future self) in a sample of 1482 Swiss youth. Furthermore, we investigate future self-identification as a source of resilience mediating the association between accumulated stressful life events on the one hand, and increase…
Addressing climate change with behavioral science: A global intervention tournament in 63 countries
Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interve…
Back to the Present: How Direction of Mental Time Travel Affects Similarity and Saving
Many consumers say they want to save for the future yet struggle to do so. This research examines this saving behavior problem from a persuasive messaging standpoint. With the goal of helping people take better care of their future selves, we build on a stream of research that has found that the way people view their identities over time affects the saving decisions they make. Although past research on similarity judgments across time almost excl…
Perspective-taking in capital punishment decisions
Perspective-taking has been theorized to be a central psychological process in how people make punishment decisions. However, previous research has only tested theory in low-stakes or hypothetical contexts. The current research describes how jurors perspective-take in real capital punishment trials ( N = 1,198) and tests a series of hypotheses from previous research in a high-stakes, naturalistic context. In examining the predictors of perspectiv…
Psychology (20 works) · Social Psychology (18 works) · Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction (10 works) · Behavioral Health and Interventions (8 works) · Psychological and Temporal Perspectives Research (8 works) · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics (7 works) · Economics (7 works) · Cognitive psychology (6 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Developmental psychology (6 works)