Delay Discounting of Different Commodities

Abstract

When outcomes are delayed, their value is decreased. Delay discounting is a much-studied topic because it is correlated with certain disorders (e.g., pathological gambling). The present study attempts to determine how people would delay discount a number of different commodities, ranging from money to dating partners to federal education legislation. Participants completed delay discounting tasks pertaining to 5 different commodities, with a different set of 5 commodities for 2 groups. Results showed that different commodities were often discounted differently. Both data sets were also subjected to factor analysis. A 2-factor solution was found for both, suggesting that there are multiple "domains" of commodities. This finding is of interest because it suggests that measuring delay discounting for one commodity within a particular domain of commodities will be predictive of how people discount other commodities within that domain but will not be predictive of how they discount commodities within another domain.

Testing the Reliability of Delay Discounting of Ten Commodities Using the Fill-in-the-Blank Method

“…A significant difference in the absolute value of this commodity in the present study was only observed in one of four potential instances (i.e., for k when participants were owed $1,000). Given that Equation 1 did not provide a particularly good fit for the present data, and the finding that rates of discounting differ depending on whether the questions concern hypothetical money that is owed or won (Weatherly, Derenne, & Terrell, 2010), it is difficult to determine how different the present results are from those reported by Beck and Triplett. In general, the finding that absolute values of k and AUC may vary across time suggests that studies of delay discounting may be most informative if they focus on relative differences rather than absolute differences.…”

“…First, we did not want to potentially exacerbate the cognitively demanding nature of the FITB method. Second, previous research (Weatherly, Terrell, & Derenne, 2010) had followed a similar procedure. The commodities in Set A were winning $1,000, winning $100,000, 100 packs of cigarettes, obtaining the ideal body image through exercise and dieting, and finding the perfect dating partner through a dating service.…”

“…Several investigations have shown that there are absolute differences in the rates of discounting of different commodities, although it is sometimes difficult to determine whether these differences represent differences between commodities themselves or whether the results are confounded by differences in the magnitude of the commodities presented to the participants (see Hardisty & Weber, 2009, for a more detailed discussion). Related to the present investigation, Weatherly, Terrell, and Derenne (2010) recently had a sample of college students complete a FITB discounting task that included five different commodities. Two different sets of commodities were tested that were identical to the ones used in the present study.…”

Factors associated with self-care behavior in persons with heart failure.

“…This model was proposed to explain previous research findings from studies of human response to delayed gratification. These findings showed that rewards or reinforcers that drive our behaviors tend to lose their value if the access to them is far in future (Weatherly, Terrell, & Derenne, 2010). Thus, a smaller more immediate reinforcer value may exceed the value of a larger reinforcer that is distant in the future resulting in impulsive behavior (Gullo & Potenza, 2014).…”

Survey of Time Preference, Delay Discounting Models

“…Others have focused on impulsivity as a personality trait, a theme particularly researched in the area of out-of-control consumption behaviors such as drug addiction, smoking, gambling, alcoholism, and so on (Madden & Bickel, 2009); but also in discounting's more prosaic connection with numerical ability (Peters, Slovic, Västfjäll, & Mertz, 2008). Focusing on the situation (i.e., the kind of commodity being discounted) rather than the person, other researchers have examined the extent to which discounting is domain specific in normal (i.e., non-addicted) people who nonetheless also experience the temptations of consumption (Hardisty & Weber, 2009;Tsukayama & Duckworth, 2010;Weatherly, Terrell, & Derenne, 2010). Yet others have examined factors that lead people to behave more impulsively across disconnected domains: e.g., Wilson and Daly (2004) found that seeing pictures of the faces of attractive women induced men to discount money more steeply than if the faces were unattractive.…”