who s giving his subjects what amounts to a crystal ball. john berman checked it out. reporter: the beatles get to the heart of a crucial question. will you still feed me when i m 64 reporter: when i m 64, what will i need? is this 20-something saving enough for when she becomes ms. 60-something? the average american, the average person, isn t taking a ton of ownership over their finances. reporter: researcher hal hirschfield had a novel idea. to get you ready for the future, show you the future. to literally walk a mile in the shoes of your future self. reporter: at the virtual human interaction lab at stanford university, he put people in a virtual reality world and had them look into a sort of aging mirror. an avatar version what was you ll look like in retirement. have you ever thought of yourself as a real, living, breathing, walking human being in your 60s? not so much. probably never thought i d get fast, i don t know, right now.
reporter: it can make a huge difference. people in the study who looked at their future self allocated twice as much money toward a hypothetical retirement savings account. twice as much. people start to have some empathy for who that person will be. you start to really feel what it might feel like for your future self to not have enough money in the future. it s a reality check. it s almost like a reality creation. i think for a lot of people that reality doesn t even exist to them. reporter: it can be unnerving. in the future, we all want to look like paul newman. but i look more like my late grandpa eddie. it s pretty jarring. hal s team is now developing an iphone app so you can age yourself anywhere. when you sit down to plan your future, you can now look over your own shoulder. john berman, abc news, palo alto, california. you know, what we ll look like 40 years from now when we re still hosting the show? let s hope not. oh my lord.
stanford university researcher who s giving his subjects what amounts to a crystal ball. john berman checked it out. reporter: the beatles get to the heart of a crucial question. will you still need me will you still feed me when i m 64 reporter: when i m 64, what will i need? is this 20-something saving enough for when she becomes ms. 60-something? the average american, the average person, isn t taking a ton of ownership over their finances. reporter: researcher hal hirschfield had a novel idea. to get you ready for the future, show you the future. to literally walk a mile in the shoes of your future self. reporter: at the virtual human interaction lab at stanford university, he put people in a virtual reality world and had them look into a sort of aging mirror. an avatar version what was you ll look like in retirement. have you ever thought of yourself as a real, living, breathing, walking human being
in your 60s? not so much. probably never thought i d get fast, i don t know, right now. reporter: it can make a huge difference. people in the study who looked at their future self allocated twice as much money toward a hypothetical retirement savings account. twice as much. people start to have some empathy for who that person will be. you start to really feel what it might feel like for your future self to not have enough money in the future. it s a reality check. it s almost like a reality creation. i think for a lot of people that reality doesn t even exist to them. reporter: it can be unne in the future, we all want to look like paul newman. but i look m likae grandpa eddie. it s pretty jarring. hal s team is now developing an iphone app so you can age yourself anywhere. when you sit down to plan your future, you can now look over your own shoulder. john berman, abc news, palo alto, cali you know, what we ll like 40 yeafrom