WISE INTERVENTIONS

University staff members saving less than 10% of their salaries for retirement were encouraged to reflect on either their self-interest (“We urge you to consider your long-term interest and to start saving more now. After all, your long-term well-being is at stake. Your decisions now will determine how much money is available to you when you retire.”) or their responsibility to their future self (“We urge you to consider the responsibility you have to yourself in retirement and urge you to start saving more now…your ‘future self’ is completely dependent on you…”). For people who felt psychologically close to their retirement-age self, the social responsibility message increased savings rates greater than the self-interest message (0.97 percentage points vs. 0.12 percentage points). For participants who felt distant from their retirement-age self, there was no difference in effectiveness.