Full PreFrontal: Exposing the Mysteries of Executive Function Ep. 11: Dr. Hal Hershfield - Befriend Your Estranged Future-Self
However creative we might be, the human blind spot disallows us from imagining ourselves vividly in the distant future. Neuroscience says we are far better at constructing our past from memory as compared to projecting ourselves as a distant future-self. For example, in theory, posting 100,000 post-it notes all over the high school as a senior prank sounds creative and harmless, right? It was only after 29 Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk High School students got suspended that they were able to imagine what pickle they got themselves into. Interestingly, the class of 2012 Valedictorian and Salutatorian were among the suspended 29. We assume smarts makes us better at seeing our future-self but it may be not be so. On this episode, my guest, Professor Hal Hershfield from the UCLA School of Management, will help connect Executive Function and the concept of future-self.
About Hal Hershfield, Ph.D.
Hal Hershfield, Assistant Professor of Marketing at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, aims to understand how thinking about time can alter people’s judgments and decisions, and transform their emotions. He investigates the factors that promote well-being as it manifests in financial decisions, health, and happiness. His central line of work examines the ways that people consider their future selves, and how feelings of connection to these distant selves can impact saving decisions, retirement choices, and ethical decisions.
Prior to UCLA, Hershfield taught at NYU’s Stern School of Business, and was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University in psychology and English, and a PhD in psychology from Stanford University.
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About Host, Sucheta Kamath
Sucheta Kamath, is an award-winning speech-language pathologist, a TEDx speaker, a celebrated community leader, and the founder and CEO of ExQ®. As an EdTech entrepreneur, Sucheta has designed ExQ's personalized digital learning curriculum/tool that empowers middle and high school students to develop self-awareness and strategic thinking skills through the mastery of Executive Function and social-emotional competence.