An Inductive Reasoning Model of Diachronic Self-Perception

How do people perceive their selves across time? Two distinctive empirical patterns have been documented. People perceive greater similarity with their future self than with their past self (i.e., the so-called ‘end-of-history illusion’), while also expecting to become a better version of themselves in the future than they were in the past (i.e., subjective growth). How may these two patterns be reconciled? We extend the inductive reasoning model (IRM; Krueger et al., 2024-a, 2024-b) from social perception to diachronic self-perception to propose a resolution. Conceptualizing the end-of-history pattern as differential projection to the future (stronger) versus the past (weaker), we derive and predict subjective growth inasmuch as self-images are positive. We present evidence from a series of re-analyses of diachronic self-ratings (total N = 8,544) and a preregistered original study (N = 505). We discuss the power of the IRM to generate precise, non-trivial, predictions and to integrate seemingly contradictory phenomena in self- and social perception.