Do pretty women inspire men to discount the future?

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 signif icantly 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.

Decision making across social contexts: competition increases preferences for risk in chimpanzees and bonobos

“…While many researchers have begun to apply evolutionary principles to economic decision making in humans (e.g. Fessler et al 2004;Wilson & Daly 2004;Ermer et al 2008;Hill & Buss 2010), studies of humans alone can only go so far. Indeed, one of the most powerful tools in evolutionary biology is the comparative method: examining the traits of different populations or species that have been shaped by differing ecological or social forces in order to better understand how natural selection proceeded (Clutton-Brock & Harvey 1979;Mayr 1982).…”

“…Contextual factors that are external to the choice at hand can have similar effects: levels of sleep deprivation (Reynolds & Schiffbauer 2004;Glass et al 2011;Venkatraman et al 2011), mood or emotional state (Raghunathan & Pham 1999;Lerner & Keltner 2001;Fessler et al 2004) and stress level (Bault et al 2008;Kassam et al 2009;Porcelli & Delgado 2009) can all shift strategies. Finally, social context, the presence or absence of particular social partners, can affect preferences in several situations, including decisions about time and risk (Wilson & Daly 2004;Bault et al 2008;Ermer et al 2008;Hill & Buss 2010). Understanding the role of social context in shaping decision-making strategies is particularly important for biologists and psychologists who are interested in understanding behaviour in the real world, as gregarious species like primates must constantly make value-based decisions in the company of others.…”

“…In one study, Wilson & Daly (2004) found that men who viewed images of attractive women had steeper temporal discounting rates, devaluing the future much more heavily than men who viewed unattractive women or cars. That is, looking at attractive women made men more impulsive or present oriented, possibly because the attractive women cued men into the possibility that current possession of goods could increase mating opportunities.…”

Effects of temporal clumping and payoff accumulation on impulsiveness and cooperation

“…With such a treatment, we should be able to show that animals cooperate in a Prisoner's Dilemma when we experimentally "switch off" their impulsiveness, but defect otherwise. The difficulty here is that we know relatively little about the causes of impulsiveness, although the literature gives several examples of impulsiveness varying across contexts in both humans and non-humans (Mazur, 1994;Mischel et al, 1989;Stephens and Anderson, 2001;Stephens and McLinn, 2003;Wilson and Daly, 2004). A manipulation that should, in theory, have a large effect on impulsiveness is payoff accumulation (Stephens, 2000).…”

Ecological and Evolutionary Principles for Secondary Education: Analyzing Career and Tech Ed

“…Furthermore, males exhibit higher levels on present orientation (Kruger et al 2008) and also sensation seeking and motivational impulsivity (Cross et al 2011). However, some of these differences may be sensitive to context, as Wilson and Daly (2004) found that males discount the future more than females, but especially when primed with physically attractive females. In contrast to males, females tend to expend more parenting effort and exhibit risk aversion (e.g., greater sensitivity to retribution or punishment and other threats ;Campbell 2002;Cross et al 2011).…”