Abstract
Organisms 'discount the future' when they value imminent goods over future goods. Optimal discounting varies: selection should favour allocations of effort that effectively discount the future relatively steeply in response to cues promising relatively good returns on present efforts. However, research on human discounting has hitherto focused on stable individual differences rather than situational effects. In two experiments, discounting was assessed on the basis of choices between a smaller sum of money tomorrow and a larger sum at a later date, both before and after subjects rated the 'appeal' of 12 photographs. In experiment 1, men and women saw either attractive or unattractive opposite-sex faces; in experiment 2, participants saw more or less appealing cars. As predicted, discounting increased significantly in men who viewed attractive women, but not in men who viewed unattractive women or women who viewed men; viewing cars produced a different pattern of results.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (82.5 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Aharon I., Etcoff N., Ariely D., Chabris C. F., O'Connor E., Breiter H. C. Beautiful faces have variable reward value: fMRI and behavioral evidence. Neuron. 2001 Nov 8;32(3):537–551. doi: 10.1016/s0896-6273(01)00491-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Breiter H. C., Aharon I., Kahneman D., Dale A., Shizgal P. Functional imaging of neural responses to expectancy and experience of monetary gains and losses. Neuron. 2001 May;30(2):619–639. doi: 10.1016/s0896-6273(01)00303-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Giordano Louis A., Bickel Warren K., Loewenstein George, Jacobs Eric A., Marsch Lisa, Badger Gary J. Mild opioid deprivation increases the degree that opioid-dependent outpatients discount delayed heroin and money. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 2002 Jul 13;163(2):174–182. doi: 10.1007/s00213-002-1159-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Kacelnik A. Normative and descriptive models of decision making: time discounting and risk sensitivity. Ciba Found Symp. 1997;208:51–70. doi: 10.1002/9780470515372.ch5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Kirby K. N., Petry N. M., Bickel W. K. Heroin addicts have higher discount rates for delayed rewards than non-drug-using controls. J Exp Psychol Gen. 1999 Mar;128(1):78–87. doi: 10.1037//0096-3445.128.1.78. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Kirby Kris N., Santiesteban Mariana. Concave utility, transaction costs, and risk in measuring discounting of delayed rewards. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2003 Jan;29(1):66–79. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- O'Doherty John P., Deichmann Ralf, Critchley Hugo D., Dolan Raymond J. Neural responses during anticipation of a primary taste reward. Neuron. 2002 Feb 28;33(5):815–826. doi: 10.1016/s0896-6273(02)00603-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Roitberg B. D., Sircom J., Roitberg C. A., van Alphen J. J., Mangel M. Life expectancy and reproduction. Nature. 1993 Jul 8;364(6433):108–108. doi: 10.1038/364108a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Wilson M., Daly M. Life expectancy, economic inequality, homicide, and reproductive timing in Chicago neighbourhoods. BMJ. 1997 Apr 26;314(7089):1271–1274. doi: 10.1136/bmj.314.7089.1271. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]