Longitudinal Precursors on Self-Continuity

Recent findings revealed systematic temporal patterns of past and future self-continuity (Lu et al., 2023) that differ meaningfully across individuals and appear to be susceptible to major life changes. To date, however, the association between structural aspects of temporal self-continuity and longitudinal health trajectories remains unexplored. To address this gap, we will leverage data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). We plan to examine how average levels and longitudinal trajectories of health-related indicators are associated with current self-continuity, both with respect to the average levels and temporal extensions (past/future asymmetries and steepness of descent relative to the present moment).