TO WAIT OR TO LOSE? FRAMING ATTENUATES DELAY DISCOUNTING ACROSS THE LIFESPAN

Every day to we make decisions that require us to reconcile our desire to be satisfied immediately with our desire to improve upon our current situation, which often requires waiting. People tend to devalue future rewards as a function of the time they must wait receive them, a phenomenon known as a delay discounting. Nearly all species exhibit delay discounting, yet there is a striking level of inter-individual variability in discounting severity. In humans, discounting rate predicts a wide array of outcomes such as academic achievement, drug addiction, salary, and obesity. Such correlational relationships have led some to argue that discounting is a stable trait. Contrary to this perspective, several studies have shown that discounting rates may gradually decrease with age. There is also evidence that contextual factors can more immediately alter an individual's discounting rate. One such factor is how information is presented, or "framed". The way in which options are framed-even if they are logically equivalent-can influence choice. Framing a choice as a loss often leads to avoidance that option, i.e. to loss aversion. Delay discounting and susceptibility to loss framing have thus far only been studied in isolation, yet in day to day life we regularly must consider both temporal and loss information, particularly as we become older. This study seeks to the bridge delay discounting, framing, and normative aging literatures to examine (1) whether reframing choices can reduce delay discounting; (2) what factors drive individual differences in discounting and framing susceptibility; (3) to what extent these phenomena interact with age; and (4) a potential application of these findings in the context of Social Security claiming.

Grantor dc:publisher

Temple University. Libraries

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Hampton, William Heyward

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Olson, Ingrid R.
• Venkatraman, Vinod

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Chein, Jason M.
• Giovannetti, Tania
• Smith, David V.
• Murty, Vishnu

• Psychology, Cognitive
• Neurosciences
• Psychology, Behavioral
• Decision making
• Delay discounting
• Framing
• Intertemporal choice
• Loss aversion

Statement dc:rights

• IN COPYRIGHT- This Rights Statement can be used for an Item that is in copyright. Using this statement implies that the organization making this Item available has determined that the Item is in copyright and either is the rights-holder, has obtained permission from the rights-holder(s) to make their Work(s) available, or makes the Item available under an exception or limitation to copyright (including Fair Use) that entitles it to make the Item available.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12613/1378

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarshare.temple.edu:20.500.12613/1378