Career: Delay of Gratification

制定有效的社会政策需要仔细分析个人做出的跨期决策。 例如，应对社会问题，如吸毒，犯罪活动，少女怀孕，高中失败，需要了解跨期的决定，有助于这些结果。 加强对跨期选择的理解是本研究的重点。 它将强调跨学科的研究项目的动机行为异常跨期决策。 每个项目分析了一个新的跨期选择模型，该模型由心理学文献中的证据和实验提出。 这些心理模型将使用标准的经济分析进行评估。 这项研究涉及三个不同的研究项目。 第一个项目分析决策者的行为与双曲线贴现函数。 双曲贴现函数提出了跨期决策的多重自我解释，为理解自我控制等现象提供了一个有趣的框架。 第二个提出了一个生理微观基础的环境依赖的动机状态或驱动器。 本研究利用生理学的内稳态理论与巴甫洛夫条件反射理论，建构一个内源性动机状态理论。 例如，这里提出的模型解释了环境线索如何引发即时满足的驱动力。 最后，第三个项目建立在关于过度乐观的心理学文献上。 这个项目研究决策者的行为与过度乐观的先验，并考虑消费行为的后果。

Formulating effective social policy requires careful analysis of the intertemporal decisions that individuals make. For example, responding to social problems like drug use, criminal activity, teenage pregnancy, and high-school failure, requires understanding of the intertemporal decisions that contribute to these outcomes. Enhancing the understanding of intertemporal choices is the focus of this study. It will emphasize interdisciplinary research projects motivated by behavioral anomalies in intertemporal decision-making. Each project analyzes a new model of intertemporal choice suggested by evidence and experiments in the psychology literature. These psychological models will be evaluated using standard economic analysis. This study involves three different research projects. The first project analyzes the behavior of decision-makers with hyperbolic discount functions. Hyperbolic discount functions suggest a multiple-self interpretation of intertemporal decision-making, generating an interesting framework for understanding phenomena like self-control. The second proposes a physiological microfoundation for environmentally dependent motivational states or drives. This project uses physiological theories of homeostasis and Pavlovian conditioning to build a theory of endogenous motivational states. For example, the model proposed here explains how environmental cues elicit drives for instantaneous gratification. Finally, the third project builds on the psychology literature about over optimism. This project examines the behavior of decision makers with over optimistic priors and considers the consequences for consumption behavior.