A delay-discounting primer.

Abstract

Impulsivity is a colloquial term with which nearly everyone has some commerce. Although the term is sometimes used to describe socially appropriate actions (e.g., "She possessed an impulsive force to succeed in her job"), it more often refers to problematic behavior. For example, children are described as impulsive when they take a toy from a peer without considering the likely consequences of doing so (e.g., the peer crying and a reprimand from a caretaker). College students are said to be impulsive when they choose to attend a party with friends rather than study for an exam scheduled for the next day. And middle-aged adults might be similarly described if they repeatedly buy things on impulse without considering that payments (with interest) will come due at the end of the month. In this more frequent usage, impulsivity describes a tendency to act on a whim and, in so doing, disregard a more rational long-term strategy for success.

A long-term study of the impulsive choices of Lewis and Fischer 344 rats

“…It could be said that in adjusting to the transition from the ascending to the descending presentation order of delays, the LEWs did so more rapidly than the F344s, choosing the LL lever at higher proportions during most delays to LLR. This result is in dispute with previous findings (Anderson & Diller, 2010;Anderson & Woolverton, 2005;Huskinson et al, 2012;Madden et al, 2008;Stein et al, 2012) that showed more impulsivity in the LEWs; the assertion that the LEWs choose more impulsively than the F344s is not supported by the present study, challenging this strain difference and confirming that it may be due to procedural issues (Stein et al, 2012) and the analytical tools used to characterize impulsive choice (Madden & Johnson, 2010).…”

“…All of the procedures, however, share the following characteristics: (1) Discrete trials offer a choice between the SSR and the LLR; (2) forced-choice trials precede free-choice trials, exposing subjects to the contingencies associated with the SSR and the LLR; (3) forced-and free-choice trials require a single response to produce either the SSR or the LLR; and (4) an intertrial interval follows each SSR and LLR, keeping constant the time between choices. Some advantages and disadvantages of each of these procedures in generating graded discount functions have been reviewed (Madden & Johnson, 2010), warranting other procedures to examine impulsive choice.…”

Framing effects in intertemporal choice: A nudge experiment

“…However, the discount rates elicited by means of the delay discounting task developed by Kirby and his colleagues have been found to be reliable and stable over time (Kirby, 2009;Myerson, Baumann and Green, 2016). These types of tasks have been also cited to be effective in determining individual differences in delay discounting (Madden and Johnson, 2010). In addition to this, the MCQ is a validated monetary discounting measure that has been widely used to assess discounting in the laboratory (Frederick, Loewenstein, and O'Donoghue, 2002), not only in experimental economics but also in a wide range of fields in the cognitive science.…”

Relation Between Time Perspective and Delay Discounting: A Literature Review

“…As reviewed by Madden and Johnson (2010), delay discounting is ordinarily measured by examining the preference between a small reward available immediately or soon versus a larger reward available at a later time. By varying the amount of the sooner reward, researchers can identify the point at which study participants value the larger, later reward.…”