Cognitive Resources and Affect in Time Discounting

时间折扣中的认知资源和情感这是经济学和心理学中的一个基本发现，人们严重低估或低估未来的事件，我们在生活的许多领域都可以看到这一点的证据。在财务决策中，我们中的许多人发现很难开始为退休或子女教育的遥远前景存钱。我们没有适当地照顾自己的健康，推迟锻炼，吃不健康的零食，避免接种疫苗或看牙医，吸烟或发生无保护措施的性行为。尽管大量研究已经证明了这种贴现，但人们对这种情况发生的原因知之甚少。理解低估的心理机制是当前研究的目的。初步的研究结果表明，对未来的评估可能结合了两个过程，一是最初的快速情感判断，然后是结合了时间信息的较慢的认知调整。试点数据表明，扰乱认知部分的操作(如在时间压力下被迫做出决定，或在被另一项任务分心时)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问题会增加而不是减少直接回报的吸引力。我们根据有关情感在决策中的作用的心理学文献来解释这些估值的变化。这本文献表明，虽然思想可能复杂、缓慢和费力，但感觉是简单、快速和毫不费力的。同样真实的是，在做出判断时，人们会利用自己的感受作为信息。因此，对人或物体的初步判断通常首先基于他们对物体的感觉，然后更慢地调整或被他们的思想修正。在我们的初步研究中，当认知资源受到限制时，对遥远未来事件的估值发生了变化，这表明这些估值具有认知成分，但受到资源操纵的干扰。对近期事件的估值相对不受认知资源的限制，这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实际结果，并更密切地研究影响在评估过程中的作用。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，更仔细或更彻底地思考一个决定可能会反常地增加未来结果的贴现率。因此，对未来结果的忽视可能并不像人们通常认为的那样，只是认知性近视。根据这里提出的观点，这是一种积极的认知过程的结果，该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.