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- Title
Do Psychological Cues Alter Our Discount Function?
- Authors
O'Malley, Karlie; Davies, Antony; Cline, Thomas W.
- Abstract
Previous psychology research has shown that people respond to cue-based or visceral stimuli (i.e., hunger, thirst, sexual desire, pain, and fear), and that these cues influence our need for immediate gratification. Cue-based stimuli alter the extent to which people value rewards received at different time horizons. Economic psychologists have suggested that cue-based stimuli can alter a person's subjective discounting mechanism, causing it to deviate from that predicted by a traditional exponential discounting model. In this paper, we tested the effects of sexual stimuli on subjective discounting through controlled experimentation. We found that, in the presence of sexual stimuli, subjects' subjective discount rates became functions of the time horizon. When faced with a near future reward, subjects exhibited a greater discount rate, but when faced with the same reward in the distant future, subjects exhibited a lesser discount rate. In other words, in the presence of sexual stimuli, subjects exhibited a preference for instant gratification when faced with a short-term reward, but patience when faced with a long-term reward. These results are inconsistent with the traditional exponential discounting model's assumption of a time horizon invariant discount rate.
- Subjects
PSYCHOLOGY; PSYCHOLOGISTS; SEX customs; DELAY of gratification; NEED (Psychology); MOTIVATION (Psychology); REWARD (Psychology); HUNGER; SEXUAL desire disorders; FEAR
- Publication
North American Journal of Psychology, 2010, Vol 12, Issue 3, p469
- ISSN
1527-7143
- Publication type
Article