Looking Back From the Future: Perspective Taking in Virtual Reality Increases Future Self-Continuity

Abstract

In the current study, we tested a novel perspective-taking exercise aimed at increasing the connection participants felt toward their future self, i.e., future self-continuity. Participants role-played as their successful future self and answered questions about what it feels like to become their future and the path to get there. The exercise was also conducted in a virtual reality environment and <i>in vivo</i> to investigate the possible added value of the virtual environment with respect to improved focus, perspective-taking, and effectiveness for participants with less imagination. Results show that the perspective taking exercise in virtual reality substantially increased all four domains of future self-continuity, i.e., connectedness, similarity, vividness, and liking, while the <i>in vivo</i> equivalent increased only liking and vividness. Although connectedness and similarity were directionally, but not significantly different between the virtual and <i>in vivo</i> environments, neither the focus, perspective taking, or individual differences in imagination could explain this difference-which suggests a small, but non-significant, placebo effect of the virtual reality environment. However, lower baseline vividness in the <i>in vivo</i> group may explain this difference and suggests preliminary evidence for the dependency of connectedness and similarity domains upon baseline vividness. These findings show that the perspective taking exercise in a VR environment can reliably increase the future self-continuity domains.