Figure: Randy Mora

The illusion of the end of the story is a very interesting phenomenon that occurs in people of almost all ages (the 2013 study was conducted on a sample of more than 19,000 respondents aged from 18 to 68 years). The essence of this illusion is that people of any age believe that their personality has changed a lot in the past, but will change little in the future. The effect is very stable and, we repeat, it appears at any age.

Every day, new neural connections are formed in the brain. In the long-term memory new memories are formed, and the old unused connections (memories, skills, etc.) weaken. Every day we get new experiences, new experiences, meet new people, learn new information. In fact, every day our brain changes a bit - and we become a little different people. Transformation of personality occurs daily throughout life. A man now cannot be the same as he was a year ago; it is simply physically impossible.

But the 2013 study convincingly showed that people are very poorly aware of the essence of the changes that occur to their brain. They tend to think that the main changes have occurred in the past, and at the moment their personality has finally formed. Many are absolutely sure that their desires, motives and character will not change in five or ten years. That they will like the same things that they will live in the same country. Of course, nothing remains the same. It is enough to remember yourself 5–10 years ago - and see what changes have occurred during this time. Changes in personal preferences, in personal growth, in ideology. The same thing goes on.
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Reported (black) and predictable (gray), according to respondents, changes in personality, values ​​and preferences

Judging by the study, changes in the personality does not stop at any stage of life. Not in childhood, not in adolescence, not in maturity, not even in old age. Judging by the memories of people of any age, the changes continued all the time, although they were slower, but they never stopped. At the same time, people are confident that these changes have stopped at this particular point in time . So consider both 18-year-olds, and pensioners.

Causes of the phenomenon

One of the authors of the scientific work, Daniel Gilbert, in a lecture at TED, argues that the reason for this illusion may be related to the overall difficulty in predicting a change in one’s personality in the future and how the attitude to the world will change. This is connected with the influence of factors that we cannot predict, and with the general difficulty of time perception by the human brain.

Impact on life

“At every stage of our life we ​​make decisions that influence our further development. And when we achieve what we want, we are not always happy with our choice. Young people spend a lot of money on tattoo removal, for which teenagers also paid a lot. People in maturity divorce those with very young people in a hurry to get married. The elderly are trying to get rid of what they got with difficulty in adulthood. And so on. The question that interests me is: why do we make decisions that we often regret afterwards? ” Asks Daniel Gilbert, a psychologist and“ a specialist in happiness, ”as he calls himself.

In fact, many of our decisions are made on the assumption that in the future we will remain like this. Then you have to regret these decisions.

But what to do, how to avoid these errors? How to predict what we want in the future, how our personality will change?

Gilbert hints that in many ways the answers to these questions are related to the imagination. Yes, a person cannot know what he will become in many years. But he can imagine it . And this fantasy may not be far from the truth. Imagination is not just a frivolous fantasy, it is in some way projected, predicting the future. Imagining a certain future for himself, a person in some degree influences him, consciously changing his values, preferences and personality.

On the other hand, we will never be the same as we imagine.

Criticism

The study "The End of History Illusion" was published on January 4, 2013 in the journal Science (doi: 10.1126 / science.1229294) and made a lot of noise in the scientific community. Still, it is not every day that psychologists “discover” such important phenomena that have a serious impact on people's lives. True, not without criticism. Authors of scientific work are criticized on two points.

First, they conducted a cross-sectional study, when simultaneously studying groups of people of different ages. It turns out "instant" picture when opinions at different ages correspond to the opinions of different people . But for an objective picture, I would like to conduct a longitudinal, that is, a long-term study, interviewing the same people at different periods of their lives. Obviously, such a more objective study will take much longer.

Secondly, critics express doubt in general about the objectivity of retrospective human memories, that is, autobiographical memory. Experiments have repeatedly confirmed that autobiographical memory can easily be distorted. There are methods for introducing false memories that people later consider to be real facts from their own childhood. So myths are born. Researchers have found that with the introduction of false memories, photos have the most impressive effect. Due to the effect of cognitive dissonance, people effectively “invent” a memory that was absent in their memory, but is present in the photo. It is recreated in the smallest details. Subjects then refuse to believe that the photographs were forged.

There is also a known effect of forgetting events in autobiographical memory. The events of the so-called “interrupted identity” - the crucial events of life, and the events surrounding them - are stored most clearly in the memory. Less significant events, especially negative ones, are gradually erased from memory.

Thus, the illusion of the end of the story definitely needs additional verification. Still, one cannot but agree with some of Gilbert's words: “People are constantly evolving creatures who mistakenly believe that their formation is complete. The person you are now is just as fleeting, transient and impermanent, just like all the people you were before. The only thing that is constantly in our life is change. ”