Everyone feels finished. Almost no one is.
Researchers Asked More Than 19,000 People How Much They Would Change in the Next Decade. Almost Everyone Said Very Little. People Ten Years Older Said They Had Changed a Lot.
In a 2013 study in Science, Jordi Quoidbach, Daniel Gilbert and Timothy Wilson found that people of every age believe the person they are today is the person they will stay.
Think back ten years. **You were a different person,** with different tastes, different priorities, maybe a different idea of what mattered.
Now think ten years ahead. Most of us picture someone **about the same as we are today.** A large study found that picture is usually too small.
The research could not prove what causes it, and it leaned on people's own memories. Still, it points at something worth holding onto: **the person telling the story today is not the last version.**
1. More than 19,000 people said the same thing
The team measured the **personalities, values and preferences** of **more than 19,000 people aged 18 to 68.** Some were asked how much they had changed over the past ten years. Others were asked how much they expected to change over the next ten.
Young, middle-aged and older people **all gave the same answer:** they had changed a lot, but they would change relatively little from here.
At every age, the present feels like the finish line.
2. The belief came with a price tag
In one study, some people named their favorite band and said the most they would pay to see it **ten years from now.** Others named the band they loved ten years ago and said what they would pay to see it **next week.**
The first group said about **$129,** the second about **$80.** That is **61 percent more** for a taste they were sure would last.
We plan as if today's self is permanent.
3. Here is the honest part: it leaned on memory
The study compared what people **remembered** about their past change with what other people **predicted** about their future. It did not follow the same people over time, so critics point out that memory itself could explain some of the gap.
The authors said plainly that their data **cannot tell what causes the illusion.** They suggested two ideas: we like to think well of who we are now, and **imagining a new self is harder than remembering an old one.**
Even with caveats, the pattern showed up across every age group.
People, it seems, regard the present as a watershed moment at which they have finally become the person they will be for the rest of their lives.Quoidbach, Gilbert, and Wilson (2013), Science
What you get with LifeScribe
- A 2013 study in Science measured more than 19,000 people aged 18 to 68.
- People of every age said they had changed a lot in the past decade but expected to change little in the next.
- In one study, people said they would pay about $129 to see a current favorite band in ten years, against about $80 for a once-favorite band now.
- The study relied on recalled and predicted change, not on following the same people over time, and it did not test families or storytelling.
- Built on documented research: Quoidbach, Gilbert, and Wilson, Science, 339(6115), 96 to 98, 2013.
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Just a phone call, free. Ari listens, asks about your life, and keeps your stories in your own voice for the people you love.
The version of you telling the story today will not be the last one. A story told now, in your own voice, is a piece of who you were that no one else can write later. It is just a phone call.
Keep the story of who you are right now.
Ari calls, listens, asks what comes next, and keeps your stories in your own voice for the people you love.
Questions grandparents ask us
What did the study actually find?
In a 2013 study of more than 19,000 people aged 18 to 68, people of every age reported changing a lot over the past ten years but predicted they would change little over the next ten.
Who ran it?
Jordi Quoidbach, Daniel Gilbert and Timothy Wilson, published in Science, volume 339, issue 6115, pages 96 to 98, in January 2013.
Does it prove people stop noticing their own change?
No. The authors say the study cannot tell what causes the pattern, and it compared remembered past change with predicted future change rather than following the same people.
Did it study families or storytelling?
No. It measured personality, values and preferences. This page makes no claim that storytelling changes the illusion.
Why does it matter for a life story?
If we tend to expect to stay the same, the story we could tell today is easy to put off. Recording it now keeps a version of ourselves we may later struggle to remember.