A formal analysis of inconsistent decisions in intertemporal choice through subjective time perception.

The framework of this paper is subjective time perception in the context of intertemporal choice, that is to say, the process of making decisions on dated outcomes (monetary or not) by an individual or a group of individuals. In this setting, the Discounted Utility model and, more specifically, the exponential discounting have been the paradigmatic methodology used to measure the preferences on delayed outcomes. However, this model can only be applied to consistent choices in which individuals do not change their preferences when the involved rewards are delayed the same time interval. Unfortunately, this is not the case of several decision scenarios where time is viewed as a subjective variable. The objective of this paper is to formally analyze the consistency of intertemporal choices governed by a discount function, derived from the exponential, where time has been distorted according to certain psychological traits of the subjects involved in the decision-making. More specifically, the different types of decreasing impatience will be characterized by focusing on the distortion derived from the subjective perspective of time. The findings of this research are very relevant in order to explain the time-related behavior of decision-makers in some noteworthy fields such as finance, psychology, marketing or sociology.

Economic preferences and obesity: Evidence from a clinical lab-in-field study.

Many studies which describe the relationship between obesity and economic preference rely on healthy, clinically-irrelevant populations. Instead, we study economic decision-making of a clinically-relevant population of 299 people with obesity who participated in a 6-months Randomized Controlled Trial in two Sydney-based hospitals to prevent diabetes onset. To elicit preferences, we use incentive-compatible experimental tasks that participants completed during their medical screening examination. In this population, we find that participants are risk averse, show no evidence of present bias, and have impatience levels comparable to healthy samples described in the international literature. Variations in present bias and impatience are not significantly associated with variations in markers of obesity. We find however a statistically significant negative association between risk tolerance and markers of obesity for women. Importantly, impatience moderates the link between risk tolerance and obesity, a finding which we are able to replicate in nationally-representative survey data. We discuss explanations for why our findings deviate markedly from the literature for this understudied but highly policy-relevant population. One explanation is that our specific population consists of forward-looking, well-educated individuals, who are willing to participate in an intensive health intervention. Hence, other factors may be at play for why these individuals live with obesity.

Impact of infectious disease pandemics on individual lifetime consumption: An endogenous time preference approach.

This paper considers the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on long-term individual lifetime consumption profiles. The framework for the analysis is a model that extends Strulik (2021) to include the government sector, where time preference is determined by individual health damage (deficit) distinct from normal aging. Thus, the health damage caused by COVID-19 changes the rate of time preference and consequently affects the Euler equation for consumption. Our theoretical contribution is the consistent incorporation of public health investment into the existing model to understand the effect of government measures against a pandemic. Numerical analysis based on this model is used to estimate changes in health status over time, trends in the rate of time preference, and individual lifetime consumption profiles, taking into account differences in age at the time of the pandemic and the nature of the government responses. Because the long-term negative economic impact would be enormous, we should avoid advocating for "living with COVID-19" without due consideration. The reopening of the economy must be accompanied by a commitment to the containment and elimination of infections with future novel coronaviruses.

Time preference and nutrition label use: Evidence from China.

The assumption that label use behavior is, to some extent, intertemporal decision behavior because the benefit of label use cannot be realized instantly, is insufficiently considered. This paper is the first to examine directly if food nutrition label use is associated with behavioral inclinations in time preference. Using a theoretical analysis, this paper illustrates that individuals with lower present bias and higher long-run patience tend to use nutrition labels more frequently. In an empirical investigation, an analysis of a nationwide survey of 1220 Chinese adults confirmed that time preference relates to label use behavior, not only via impatience but also via hyperbolic discounting. Results of this study can help to better understand label-use behavior. They also provide important policy implications for the design of proper strategies for improving food nutrition label use, as well as help consumers in China and other developing countries choose healthier diets.

Sadness, but not all negative emotions, heightens addictive substance use.

Do negative feelings in general trigger addictive behavior, or do specific emotions play a stronger role? Testing these alternative accounts of emotion and decision making, we drew on the Appraisal Tendency Framework to predict that sadness, specifically, rather than negative mood, generally, would 1) increase craving, impatience, and actual addictive substance use and 2) do so through mechanisms selectively heightened by sadness. Using a nationally representative, longitudinal survey, study 1 (n = 10,685) revealed that sadness, but not other negative emotions (i.e., fear, anger, shame), reliably predicted current smoking as well as relapsing 20 years later. Study 2 (n = 425) used an experimental design, and found further support for emotion specificity: Sadness, but not disgust, increased self-reported craving relative to a neutral state. Studies 3 and 4 (n = 918) introduced choice behavior as outcome variables, revealing that sadness causally increased impatience for cigarette puffs. Moreover, study 4 revealed that the effect of sadness on impatience was more fully explained by concomitant appraisals of self-focus, which are specific to sadness, than by concomitant appraisals of negative valence, which are general to all negative emotions. Importantly, study 4 also examined the topography of actual smoking behavior, finding that experimentally induced sadness (as compared to neutral emotion) causally increased the volume and duration of cigarette puffs inhaled. Together, the present studies provide support for a more nuanced model regarding the effects of emotion on tobacco use, in particular, as well as on addictive behavior, in general.

Time Discounting and Economic Decision-making in the Older Population.

This paper examines heterogeneity in time discounting among a representative sample of elderly Americans, as well as its role in explaining key economic behaviors at older ages. We show how older Americans evaluate simple (hypothetical) inter-temporal choices in which payments today are compared with payments in the future. Using the indicators derived from this measure, we then demonstrate that differences in discounting patterns are associated with characteristics of particular importance in elderly populations. For example, cognitive deficits are associated with greater impatience, whereas bequest motives are associated with less impatience. We then relate our discounting measure to key economic outcomes and find that impatience is associated with lower wealth, fewer investments in health, and less planning for end of life care.

Disruption in time projection and non-adherence to long-term therapies.

OBJECTIVE: Patients' non-adherence to medical prescriptions is a crucial issue in contemporary medicine because it can jeopardize care efficacy. Non-adherence is especially frequent in patients with chronic diseases. In this article, we propose that a particular condition, which we call disruption in time projection, is a cause of non-adherence to medication therapies in chronic diseases. METHODS: A questionnaire was administered to 120 hospitalized people with type 2 diabetes addressing three psychological constructs defining time projection: patience/impatience in a fictive monetary scenario (preferring to receive €1,500 in 1 year or €500 today), magnitude of temporal horizon (greater or lesser ability to imagine future events) and perception of the degree of physical similarity of current self to self at 1 year, 5 years and 10 years from the present. In addition, the questionnaire evaluated adherence to medication, social deprivation and depression. RESULTS: In the multivariate analyses, two factors were associated with adherence to medication: patience (P<0.001) and long temporal horizon (P=0.006). Two factors were associated with HbA1c ≥8% (64 mmol/mol): non-adherence to medication (P=0.003) and short temporal horizon (P=0.011). Three factors were associated with long temporal horizon: adherence to medication (P<0.001), patience (P<0.001) and the existence of grandchildren (P=0.002). Social deprivation (P<0.001), non-adherence (P<0.001), female gender (P=0.002) and short temporal horizon (P=0.050) were associated with impatience. Finally, an association of adherence to expected similarity in the future to current self, impatience, short temporal horizon, social deprivation and depression was also shown in a multiple correspondence analysis. CONCLUSION: What we termed a disruption in time projection may be a unique determinant for non-adherence to long-term therapy and, therefore, may influence the outcome of chronic diseases. We hypothesize that this is involved in both intentional and unintentional non-adherence and that it represents the loss of a protective mechanism. If this novel concept is to be confirmed in other settings and generalized to other chronic diseases, the recognition of its role in disease prognosis may help orient the teaching and practice of medicine.

Are Parents Patient? The Influence of Parenting Role Salience and Parental Status on Impatience.

In the classic intertemporal discounting task (Thaler, 1981), individuals make tradeoff decisions between smaller-sooner and larger-later monetary rewards. We explored how parental role salience and parental status influences individual's choice between smaller-sooner and larger-later choices. Parental role salience is manipulated among both parents and non-parents in this research. Our results show a significant interaction between parental status and manipulated parental role salience. Specifically, we found that parents are more impatient than non-parents. Additionally, non-parents become more impatient after parental role salience manipulation, similar to parents. Theoretical implications of our findings are discussed.

[Identity, destiny and schizophrenia]. / Identité, destin et schizophrénie.

In his work « Phenomenology of Psychosis ¼ Arthur Tatossian tends to report the basal alteration of patients to a constrained phenomenological reduction and deducts the drive of daily life as a sensitive point of the schizophrenic experience, vulnerability and mark of his destiny. This perspective reveals the challenge of the dynamics of human identity. Going beyond the spatial figure of a split, Alfred Kraus takes up the living format of the dynamics of « role ¼, which regulates the relation of the subject to Self and others, and suggests to report symptoms and syndromes, another stake destined, to one of the variants dialectics of the balance between self and others. We return to the psychopathological intuition of the origins of psychiatric phenomenology to relate the disorder to a particular experience of the lived time, a modification of the relations between the temporal ecstasies that Bin Kimura describes as an excessive « futurisation ¼ by accentuation of the possible and impatience to exist. These approaches inform in a novel way the system of care, and far from advocating objective therapeutic applications, generate implications that can enrich and enhance care projects.

Dissociable effects of age and testosterone on adolescent impatience.

The onset of adolescence is associated with an increase in transgressive behaviours-from juvenile delinquency to substance use and unprotected sex-that are often attributed to increased impulsiveness. In the past, this increase was ascribed to "raging hormones"; more recently, to an imbalance in the maturation of different brain regions. However, it remains unclear how these large-scale biological changes impact specific processes that result in impulsive decisions, namely, sensitivity to immediate rewards and general discounting of future options. To gain further insight into these questions, we used an intertemporal choice task to investigate the role of testosterone in impatient decision-making in boys at the developmental transition to adolescence (N=72, ages 11-14). Our results suggest that increased testosterone (but not age) is related to increased sensitivity to immediate rewards, whereas increased age (but not testosterone) is related to a reduction in general impatience. These results are discussed in the context of recent neurobiological models of adolescent development.

Does the Timing of Food Stamp Distribution Matter? A Panel-Data Analysis of Monthly Purchasing Patterns of US Households.

In this paper, we examine the relationship between the timing of food stamp receipt and purchasing patterns. We combine data on state distribution dates of food stamps with scanner data on a panel of households purchases tracked between 2004 and 2011. We find that purchases of a variety of goods are meaningfully higher on receipt days, consistent with previous work that suggests that recipients are very impatient. Additionally, and importantly, estimates indicate that when food stamp receipt days fall on weekends, total monthly purchases within the same households are affected. In particular, monthly purchases of beer are higher when food stamps are distributed on a weekend rather than in months where benefits are distributed on weekdays. For these households, total beer purchases are between 4 and 5% higher in those months. Among households ineligible for food stamps, no effect is identified. These results demonstrate that the 'day-of-the-week' of SNAP treatment may have important impacts on household purchase habits. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Doctor-patient differences in risk and time preferences: A field experiment.

We conduct a framed field experiment among patients and doctors to test whether the two groups have similar risk and time preferences. We elicit risk and time preferences using multiple price list tests and their adaptations to the healthcare context. Risk and time preferences are compared in terms of switching points in the tests and the structurally estimated behavioural parameters. We find that doctors and patients significantly differ in their time preferences: doctors discount future outcomes less heavily than patients. We find no evidence that doctors and patients systematically differ in their risk preferences in the healthcare domain.

Impulsive Driving: Definition and Measurement Using the I-Driving Scale (IDS).

Impulsivity has been widely studied in the context of traffic. The trait is believed to be the root of some accidents, along with other variables like aggression and anger. The present research objective is to develop a new scale - the I-Driving Scale (IDS) - to evaluate and measure the construct of impulsivity in specific driving situations. To that end, two studies were conducted, with 162 and 107 participants, respectively. In both studies, participants were recruited via their social networks, and answered anonymously. In addition to the IDS, they completed the Use the Vehicle to Express Anger subscale of the Driving Anger Expression Inventory (DAX), the Driving Anger Scale (DAS), and the Barratt Impulsivity Scale (BIS11), and also provided demographic information. The final scale had 11 items falling into two factors: impatience, and aggressiveness/abruptness. The results show a high consistency (αT = .81, αI = .70, and αA = .85 in the first study; αT = .83, αI = .80, and αA = .88 in the second study). Statistical results of Exploratory Factor Analysis in the first sample indicated goodness of fit to a two-factor model (RMSR = .057, GFI = .98). The second study confirmed that factorial structure (χ2/df = 80.50/43 = 1.87, RMSEA = .088, CFI = .94, TLI = .92). Correlations with other measures indicated the Impatience subscale is associated with different expressions of anger behind the wheel, and directly correlated with the loss of driver's license points. Furthermore, the Aggressiveness or Abruptness subscale was associated with more mechanical aspects, and correlated inversely with age.

Short- and long-run goals in ultimatum bargaining: impatience predicts spite-based behavior.

The ultimatum game (UG) is widely used to study human bargaining behavior and fairness norms. In this game, two players have to agree on how to split a sum of money. The proposer makes an offer, which the responder can accept or reject. If the responder rejects, neither player gets anything. The prevailing view is that, beyond self-interest, the desire to equalize both players' payoffs (i.e., fairness) is the crucial motivation in the UG. Based on this view, previous research suggests that fairness is a short-run oriented motive that conflicts with the long-run goal of self-interest. However, competitive spite, which reflects an antisocial (not norm-based) desire to minimize others' payoffs, can also account for the behavior observed in the UG, and has been linked to short-run, present-oriented aspirations as well. In this paper, we explore the relationship between individuals' intertemporal preferences and their behavior in a citywide dual-role UG experiment (N = 713). We find that impatience (short-run orientation) predicts the rejection of low, "unfair" offers as responder and the proposal of low, "unfair" offers as proposer, which is consistent with spitefulness but inconsistent with fairness motivations. This behavior systematically reduces the payoffs of those who interact with impatient individuals. Thus, impatient individuals appear to be keen to minimize their partners' share of the pie, even at the risk of destroying it. These findings indicate that competitively reducing other's payoffs, rather than fairness (or self-interest), is the short-run goal in ultimatum bargaining.

Adolescent impatience decreases with increased frontostriatal connectivity.

Adolescence is a developmental period associated with an increase in impulsivity. Impulsivity is a multidimensional construct, and in this study we focus on one of the underlying components: impatience. Impatience can result from (i) disregard of future outcomes and/or (ii) oversensitivity to immediate rewards, but it is not known which of these evaluative processes underlie developmental changes. To distinguish between these two causes, we investigated developmental changes in the structural and functional connectivity of different frontostriatal tracts. We report that adolescents were more impatient on an intertemporal choice task and reported less future orientation, but not more present hedonism, than young adults. Developmental increases in structural connectivity strength in the right dorsolateral prefrontal tract were related to increased negative functional coupling with the striatum and an age-related decrease in discount rates. Our results suggest that mainly increased control, and the integration of future-oriented thought, drives the reduction in impatience across adolescence.