Cognitive Resources and Affect in Time Discounting

德拉赞·普雷莱茨 时间折扣中的认知资源和情感经济学和心理学的一个基本发现是，人们严重低估或低估未来事件，我们可以在生活的许多领域看到证据。 在财务决策方面，我们中的许多人发现很难开始为遥远的退休前景或孩子的教育存钱。 我们没有适当照顾自己的健康，推迟锻炼，吃不健康的零食，避免接种疫苗或牙医，吸烟或进行无保护的性行为。 虽然大量的研究已经证明了这种折扣，但很少有人知道它为什么会发生。 理解价值低估的心理机制是本研究的目的。初步研究结果表明，未来的估值可能结合联合收割机两个过程，一个初始的非时间快速情感判断，其次是较慢的认知调整，纳入时间信息。 试验数据表明，干扰认知成分的操作（如在时间压力下被迫做出决定或被另一项任务分心）会减少折扣的数量。 有些令人惊讶的是，给人们更多的时间来思考事情，增加而不是减少立即奖励的吸引力。 我们根据心理学文献中关于情感在决策中的作用来解释这些价值观的变化。 这些文献表明，虽然思想可能是复杂的，缓慢的和费力的，但感觉是简单的，快速的和毫不费力的。 同样正确的是，在做出判断时，人们会把他们的感受作为信息。因此，对人或物体的最初判断往往首先基于他们对物体的感觉，然后慢慢地调整或修改他们的想法。 在我们的试点研究中，当认知资源受到限制时，对遥远未来事件的估值会发生变化，这表明这些估值有一个认知成分，它会被资源操纵所破坏。近期事件的估值相对不受认知资源的限制，表明这些估值判断更多地基于情感。通过拟议的研究，我们将把这些初步发现扩展到真实的结果，并更密切地关注情感在估值过程中的作用。 这些发现将对广泛的决策产生重大影响。 从规范的角度来看，这项研究的新含义是，更努力或更彻底地思考一个决定可能会增加未来结果的折扣率。因此，对未来结果的忽视可能不仅仅是人们普遍认为的认知近视。根据这里提出的解释，它是一种积极的认知过程的结果，这种过程抵消了对未来事件的最初情绪反应。

Drazen Prelec Cognitive Resources and Emotion in Time Discounting It is a basic finding in economics and psychology that people heavily undervalue or discount future events, and we can see evidence of it in many areas of our lives. In financial decisions, many of us find it hard to start to save money for the distant prospect of our retirement or for our children's education. We fail to take proper care of our health, putting off exercise, eating unhealthy snacks, avoiding vaccinations or the dentist, smoking a cigarette or having unprotected sex. Although a great deal of research has demonstrated such discounting, very little is known about why it occurs. Understanding the psychological mechanisms of undervaluation is the aim of the current research. Preliminary findings indicate that the valuation of a future may combine two processes, an initial a-temporal rapid affective judgment followed by slower cognitive adjustment that incorporates temporal information. Pilot data indicate that operations that disrupt the cognitive component (like being forced to decide under time pressure or while distracted by another task) reduce the amount of discounting. Somewhat surprisingly, giving people more time to think things through increases rather than decreases the appeal of immediate rewards. We interpret these changes in valuation in light of the psychological literature on the role of affect in decision making. This literature suggests that, while thoughts may be complex, slow and effortful, feelings are simple, rapid and effortless. It is also true that, in making judgments, people will use their feelings as information. Therefore, initial judgments of people or objects are often based first on their feelings about the object and then adjusted more slowly or modified by their thoughts. In our pilot studies, the valuations of far future events changed when cognitive resources were restricted, suggesting that these valuations had a cognitive component that is disrupted by the resource manipulation. The valuations of the near future events were relatively immune to the restriction of cognitive resources, suggesting these valuation judgments are more feelings-based. With the proposed research, we will extend these preliminary findings to real outcomes and look more closely into the role of affect in the valuation process. These findings will have significant implications for a wide range of decisions. From a normative standpoint, the novel implication of the research is that thinking harder or more thoroughly about a decision may perversely increase the rate at which future outcomes are discounted. The disregard of future outcomes shown therefore may not be simply a case of cognitive myopia, as is commonly thought. On the account proposed here, it is the result of an active cognitive process that counteracts the initial emotional response to a future event.