Delay Discounting

Effects of measurement methods on the relationship between smoking and delay reward discounting

by Richard Tunney

Discounting of Delayed Consequences in Women with a History of Abuse

by Meghan Fidler

On Intertemporal Selfishness: How the Perceived Instability of Identity Underlies Impatient Consumption

by Daniel Bartels

full cite: Bartels, Daniel M. and Oleg Urminsky (2011), "On Intertemporal Selfishness: How the Perceived Instability of Identity Underlies Impatient Consumption," Journal of Consumer Research, 38, 182-198.

How does the anticipated connectedness between one’s current and future identity help explain impatience in... more How does the anticipated connectedness between one’s current and future identity help explain impatience in intertemporal preferences? The less consumers are closely connected psychologically to their future selves, the less willing they will be to forgo immediate benefits in order to ensure larger deferred benefits to be received by that future self. When consumers’ measured or manipulated sense of continuity with their future selves is lower, they accept smaller-sooner rewards, wait less in order to save money on a purchase, require a larger premium to delay receiving a gift card, and have lower long-term discount rates.

Psychological connectedness and intertemporal choice.

by Daniel Bartels

full cite: Bartels, Daniel M. and Lance J. Rips (2010), "Psychological Connectedness and Intertemporal Choice," Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 139, 49-69.

People tend to attach less value to a good if they know a delay will occur before they obtain it. For example, people... more People tend to attach less value to a good if they know a delay will occur before they obtain it. For example, people value receiving $100 tomorrow more than receiving $100 in 10 years. We explored one reason for this tendency (due to Parfit, 1984): In terms of psychological properties, such as beliefs, values, and goals, the decision maker is more closely linked to the person (his or her future self) receiving $100 tomorrow than to the person receiving $100 in 10 years. For this reason, he or she prefers his or her nearer self to have the $100 rather than his or her more remote self. Studies 1 and 2 showed that the greater the rated psychological connection between 2 parts of a participant’s life, the less he or she discounted future monetary and nonmonetary benefits (e.g., good days at work) over that interval. In Studies 3–5, participants read about characters who undergo large life-changing (and connectedness-weakening) events at different points in their lives and then made decisions about the timing of benefits on behalf of these characters. All 5 studies revealed a relation between perceived psychological connectedness and intertemporal choice: Participants preferred benefits to occur before large changes in connectedness but preferred costs to occur after these changes.

Effects of acute and repeated administration of caffeine on temporal discounting in rats

by Benjamin Thomas Saunders

Delay to presentation is one variable that can weaken the reinforcing efficacy of an outcome in a choice situation and... more Delay to presentation is one variable that can weaken the reinforcing efficacy of an outcome in a choice situation and drugs have been shown to modify such choices. A growing body of literature has examined effects of stimulant drugs on temporal (delay) discounting, but effects of caffeine, the most widely used stimulant in the world, have not previously been assessed. In the present experiment, effects of caffeine (administered acutely and repeatedly) on temporal discounting were analyzed. Male Sprague-Dawley rats (n=7) chose between a single food pellet delivered immediately after a lever press and three food pellets delivered after a delay. The delay to the three pellets increased within each session, from 0 to 16 s. High doses of caffeine increased large-reinforcer choice relative to control conditions. With repeated caffeine exposure, percent choice for the large reinforcer decreased relative to acute administration, but was still greater than pre-drug baseline. Following withdrawal of drug administration, choice returned to levels seen during pre-drug baseline. Reintroduction of caffeine increased the percent choice for a larger, delayed reinforcer to near acute levels. The results from the present study are consistent with previous research in which stimulant drugs have decreased temporal (delay) discounting.

Models of trace decay, eligibility for reinforcement, and delay of reinforcement gradients, from exponential to hyperboloid

by Peter Killeen

Behavior such as depression of a lever or perception of a stimulus may be strengthened by consequent behaviorally... more Behavior such as depression of a lever or perception of a stimulus may be strengthened by consequent behaviorally significant events (BSEs), such as reinforcers. This is the Law of Effect. As time passes since its emission, the ability for the behavior to be reinforced decreases. This is trace decay. It is upon decayed traces that subsequent BSEs operate. If the trace comes from a response, it constitutes primary reinforcement; if from perception of an extended stimulus, it is classical conditioning. This paper develops simple models of these processes. It premises exponentially decaying traces related to the richness of the environment, and conditioned reinforcement as the average of such traces over the extended stimulus, yielding an almost-hyperbolic function of duration. The models account for some data, and reinforce the theories of other analysts by providing a sufficient account of the provenance of these effects. It leads to a linear relation between sooner and later isopreference delays whose slope depends on sensitivity to reinforcement, and intercept on that and the steepness of the delay gradient. Unlike human prospective judgments, all control is vested in either primary or secondary reinforcement processes; therefore the use of the term discounting, appropriate for humans, may be less descriptive of the behavior of nonverbal organisms.