We examined effects of time frame duration (a month vs. a year) and delay (next month vs. a
specific future month) on personal savings estimates. Results revealed that unitized monthly
savings estimates provided for a specific future month were significantly higher than those
given for either next month or next year (Experiments 1). An examination of the underlying
process revealed that decision makers had greater future optimism when estimating savings
for a specific future month (Experiment 2) and thought of the savings task with low-level …