Temporal Discounting of Social Goals

由于几个原因，延迟收益通常比即时收益更受重视。这种价值的减少可以看作是应用时间折现因子的结果。人们对观察到的未来收入的贴现进行了许多研究。例如，如果决策者判断2年后收到的100美元与现在的70美元价值相等，那么观察到的该决策的贴现率约为2年内的30%（或每年约为16%）。然而，人们也追求金钱以外的目标，包括健康、安全、休闲、归属感、地位、他人的幸福，以及稳定和有吸引力的环境。如果这些非货币性目标的实现被推迟，它们的价值也会降低，因此时间折扣因子的概念可以扩展到这些其他目标。不同的折扣因子可能适用于不同的目标类别，而这反过来又会影响人们如何在不同时间点达到的目标之间进行权衡。例如，如果决策者判断两年后的环境改善几乎与现在实现的相同改善一样有价值，那么环境目标的贴现率可能只有每年3%，尽管每年获得100美元的货币收益是16%。一个现在不愿意放弃100美元以立即实现环境目标的人，可能愿意做出有约束力的承诺，延迟一年放弃100美元（仅值84美元），以延迟1年实现相同的环境目标。因此，为了分析与健康、安全和环境有关的公共政策的长期效益，了解人类时间贴现在不同目标类别之间的变化是很重要的。我们之前的研究表明，隶属关系和社会目标（如地位或对群体规范的遵守）对环境目标决策的重要性。我们的新研究将确定衡量不同目标类别的时间折现因素的最佳方法，然后将定量地比较各种经济、社会和环境目标的折现率。我们既关注典型的反应，也关注个体和文化差异。该研究将推动社会和群体背景下的决策理论（社会目标的时间折扣以前没有被考虑过），将开发评估时间折扣因素的方法，并将导致更好地分析公共政策的成本和收益。例如，我们将评估防止全球变暖措施的一些成本和收益的贴现率，使用不同的国家样本，为这一关键问题的政策提供信息。一项实地研究将检验我们的研究结果在国际人口中的适用性，并将提供关于鼓励节约能源的有效方法的数据。

Delayed benefits are usually valued less than immediate ones, for several reasons. Such a reduction in value can be viewed as the result of applying a temporal discount factor. There have been many studies of the observed discounting of future receipts of money. For example, if a decision maker judges that $100, to be received in 2 years, is equal in value to $70 right now, the observed discount rate for this decision is about 30% for 2 years (or about 16% per year). However, people also pursue goals other than money, including good health, safety, leisure, belonging, status, well being of others, and a stable and attractive environment. Such non-monetary goals may also be valued less if their achievement is delayed, so the concept of a temporal discount factor can be extended to these other goals. Different discount factors may apply for different goal categories, and this, in turn, would affect how people make tradeoffs among goals attained at different points in time. For example, if a decision maker judges an environmental improvement 2 years hence to be almost as valuable as the same improvement achieved now, the discount rate might be only 3% per year for the environmental goal even though it is 16% per year for a monetary gain of $100. A person who is unwilling to give up $100 now, for immediate attainment of the environmental goal, might be willing to make a binding commitment to give up $100 with a delay of one year (worth only $84), in order to achieve the same environmental goal with a delay of 1 year. Thus, it is important to know how human temporal discounting varies across goal categories in order to analyze the long-term benefits of public policies relating to health, safety, and environment.Our previous research showed the importance of affiliation and social goals (such as status or adherence to group norms) for decisions concerning environmental goals. Our new research will determine the best ways of measuring temporal discount factors for different goal categories, and will then quantitatively compare discount rates for a variety of economic, social and environmental goals. We focus both on typical responses and on individual and cultural variation. The research will advance the theory of decision making in social and group contexts (temporal discounting of social goals has not previously been considered), will develop methods for assessing temporal discount factors, and will lead to better analysis of public policy costs and benefits. For example, we will assess discount rates for some costs and benefits of measures to prevent global warming, using a diverse national sample, to inform policy on this critical issue. A field study will test applicability of our findings in an international population and will provide data on effective means of encouraging energy conservation.