The need of young adults to text now: Using delay discounting to assess informational choice

This study examined the value of responding immediately to a text or call and the ability to wait. The willingness to delay texting or calling for a larger monetary reward was compared with delay tolerance for monetary rewards alone. The results of two experiments showed no differences in the qualitative shape of the delay discounting functions, indicating a similar decision-making process for informational (texting or calling) and monetary decisions. Data in the second experiment showed that the degree of delay tolerance varied as a function of the social distance of the texting partner, indicating a strategic decision-making process in informational decisions. However, the time course of loss of value for informational versus monetary rewards revealed substantial quantitative differences. While money loses value on the time span of weeks, information loses value within minutes, which may explain why behaviors like texting often occur in inappropriate situations and may seem like addictions.     

金钱奖赏对海洛因戒断者工作记忆刷新功能的促进作用减弱

采用有无金钱奖赏条件下的n-back任务，探讨金钱奖赏对海洛因戒断者工作记忆刷新功能的影响。结果发现：所有被试在金钱奖赏条件下的反应时都显著短于无奖赏条件下的反应时；海洛因戒断组在有无金钱奖赏条件下的反应时的差值显著小于正常组在有无金钱奖赏条件下的反应时的差值；在1-back和2-back任务中，正常组的正确率显著高于海洛因戒断组的正确率。结果表明：金钱奖赏对海洛因戒断者工作记忆刷新功能存在一定的促进作用，但是其促进作用幅度要弱于正常人；海洛因戒断者的工作记忆刷新功能可能存在损伤。     

Monetary Valuations of Life Conditions in a Consistent Framework: The Life Satisfaction Approach

The life satisfaction approach (LSA) enables researchers to attach monetary values to nonmarket circumstances that affect people’s life satisfaction. Previous studies employ LSA to examine how the environment, health, and social capital, etc. affect life satisfaction. This study focuses on the OECD Better Life Index and intends to evaluate more comprehensive socioeconomic characteristics. Considering comprehensive factors about life enables us to avoid biased estimation. This study also considers more consistent estimation methods. Previous studies tend to attach monetary valuations in different settings. Thus, it is difficult to compare the effects of different socioeconomic circumstances. This study employs LSA to estimate the happiness functions of Japanese survey respondents by incorporating extensive socioeconomic characteristics as explanatory variables. Controlling for multiple factors affecting subjective wellbeing, we more accurately attach monetary values to each factor within a consistent analytical framework. By doing so, we assess factors’ relative comparable influence on subjective wellbeing. We adopt three estimation procedures to check robustness against model specifications. Results indicate that respondents value small changes in their socioeconomic circumstances more highly than other factors. Especially, circumstances surrounding quality of life carry higher equivalent monetary valuations than material living standards.     

金钱刺激和决策者角色对个体道德决策的影响——基于过程分离范式

以大学生为被试,采用3（金钱刺激：无金钱刺激、金钱奖励、金钱惩罚）×2（决策者角色：决策者、旁观者）的被试间实验设计,利用过程分离范式分别计算被试道德决策中的功利主义倾向和道义论倾向,从而探讨金钱刺激和决策者角色对个体道德决策的影响。结果发现：（1）无论是决策者还是旁观者,金钱刺激都不会影响其道义论倾向;（2）决策者的道义论倾向大于旁观者;（3）只在有金钱奖励时决策者的功利主义倾向才大于旁观者。     

Applying prospect theory to pilot weather-related decision-making: The impact of monetary and time considerations on risk taking behaviour

One of the key findings of prospect theory is that people tend to treat potential gains differently to potential losses. Consistent with earlier findings across a range of areas, pilots were risk averse when faced with an uncertain situation involving monetary gains and risk seeking when faced with a monetary loss. Prospect theory has largely been used to explore monetary decision-making; however, “time” is potentially a more important consideration for pilots than money. For example, how much time can be flown with the current fuel onboard. It was found that pilots' decision behaviour changed when faced with a decision involving time, with pilots risk averse for both a time gain and a time loss situation. Pilots appeared to prefer to know precisely the time required for a journey, rather than take a gamble on a potential short cut. Evidence also suggests pilots were more likely to take risks in situations that they perceive they have more control over (e.g. air traffic delays) compared to dynamic weather-related events. There was some evidence to suggest pilots do not consider a decision in terms of an end state, but rather in terms of losses and gains from their current state. The final part of the study found evidence that it may be possible to predict pilot risk taking behaviour using self-report decision frames.     

The mental accounting of sunk time costs: why time is not like money

The sunk‐cost effect, an irrational attention to non‐recoverable past costs while making current decisions, has been documented widely in the domain of monetary costs. In this paper, I study the effect of past time investments on current decisions. In three experiments using choice situations, I demonstrate that the sunk‐cost effect is not observed for past investments of time, but the effect reappears when the investments are expressed as monetary quantities. I further propose that this ‘pseudo‐rationality’ is due to the fact that individuals lack the ability to account for time in the same way as they account for money. In two additional experiments, I facilitate the accounting of time and show that the irrational sunk‐cost effect reappears. In a final experiment, I test my propositions in a setting where subjects make real investments of time and subsequently make real choices. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sizing up information distortion: quantifying its effect on the subjective values of choice options

When choosing between options, people often distort new information in a direction that favors their developing preference. Such information distortion is widespread and robust, but less is known about the magnitude of its effects. In particular, research has not quantified the effects of distortion relative to the values of the choice options. In two experiments, we manipulated participants’ initial preferences in choices between risky three-outcome monetary gambles (win, lose, or neither) by varying the order of five information items (e.g., amount to win, chance of losing). In Experiment 1 (N = 397), the effect of initial information on gambles’ certainty equivalents (subjective values) was mediated by the distortion of later information. The indirect effect on the difference between gambles’ certainty equivalents averaged 27% of the gambles’ mean expected value. In Experiment 2 (N = 791), we increased the difference between gambles on a later information item to overcome the effect of initial information on participants’ choices. The required change averaged 31% of the gambles’ mean expected value. We conclude that the effects of information distortion can be substantial.     

On the application of J.M. Keynes's approach to decision making

It is shown that J. M. Keynes was the originator of what is called a weighted monetary value (WMV) approach to decision making under uncertainty and risk as opposed to either the expected monetary value (EMV) or subjective expected utility (SEU) approaches.     

Effort for payment. A tale of two markets

The standard model of labor is one in which individuals trade their time and energy in return for monetary rewards. Building on Fiske's relational theory (1992), we propose that there are two types of markets that determine relationships between effort and payment: monetary and social. We hypothesize that monetary markets are highly sensitive to the magnitude of compensation, whereas social markets are not. This perspective can shed light on the well-established observation that people sometimes expend more effort in exchange for no payment (a social market) than they expend when they receive low payment (a monetary market). Three experiments support these ideas. The experimental evidence also demonstrates that mixed markets (markets that include aspects of both social and monetary markets) more closely resemble monetary than social markets.     

Delay discounting as emotional processing: An electrophysiological study

Both theoretical models and functional imaging studies implicate the involvement of emotions within the delay discounting process. However, defining this role has been difficult to establish with neuroimaging techniques given the automaticity of emotional responses. To address this, the current study examined electrophysiological correlates involved in the detection and evaluation of immediate and delayed monetary outcomes. Our results showed that modulation of both early and later ERP components previously associated with affective stimuli processing are sensitive to the signalling of delayed rewards. Together with behavioural reaction times that favoured immediacy, we demonstrated, for the first time, that time delays modify the incentive value of monetary rewards via mechanisms of emotional bias and selective visual attention. Furthermore, our data are consistent with the hypothesis that delayed and thus intangible rewards are perceived less saliently, and rely on emotion as a common currency within decision making. This study provides a new approach to delay discounting and highlights a potential novel route through which delay discounting may be investigated.     

The Bright and Dark Sides of Performance-Dependent Monetary Rewards: Evidence From Visual Perception Tasks

Studies have shown that performance-dependent monetary rewards facilitate visual perception. However, no study has examined whether such a positive effect is limited to the rewarded task or may be generalized to other tasks. In the current study, two groups of people were asked to perform two visual perception tasks, one being a reward-relevant task and the other being a reward-irrelevant task. For the reward-relevant task, the experimental group received performance-dependent monetary rewards, whereas the control group did not. For the reward-irrelevant task, both groups were not rewarded. The two tasks were randomly intermixed trial by trial (Experiment 1) or presented block by block (Experiment 2) or session by session (Experiments 3a, 3b, and 3c). Results showed that performance-dependent monetary rewards improved participants' performance on the relevant task in all experiments and impaired their performance on the irrelevant task in Experiments 2, 3a, 3b, and 3c. These results suggested that monetary rewards might incur a cost on reward-irrelevant tasks. Finally, the benefit of monetary rewards disappeared when they were no longer provided during the final session. This is the first study that reveals both the bright and dark sides of the performance-dependent monetary rewards in visual perception.     

Transformational Growth and Poverty: An Evolutionary Approach for Inter-Country and Inter-Temporal Comparisons of Poverty Incidence

Within the development literature three accords seem to have taken place regarding poverty measurement. These relate to the relative or absolute measurement of poverty, the monetary versus basic needs measurement, and the existence of an international poverty line. In this paper, all three of these accords are challenged from an evolutionary perspective. A framework is presented to show how the poverty line (as well as the nature and characteristics of poverty) evolve as countries go through the process of changing consumption and production patterns that increases average income, i.e., transformational growth. Based on this framework, an answer to the problem of how to compare poverty rates through long periods of time is developed. It results in an absolute poverty line (rather than a relative one), which changes through time. This approach is shown to be better (because it is not mechanical) than the income-elasticity of the poverty line for inter-temporal comparisons. It is not mechanical because the poverty line is not adjusted by the change in average income but on the socially determined, evolving, acceptable minima to participate in society. It is also found to avoid the limitations of the currently used "international poverty lines.“ Finally, a similar approach is used to develop a method of adjusting the measurement of poverty based on basic needs, i.e., using a matrix of social deprivations rather than a monetary poverty line. This is done using the methodology developed by UNICEF, the University of Bristol, and the London School of Economics to measure child poverty based on deprivation of rights, which constitute poverty. This method has been applied in over 70 countries world-wide.     

Escalation and De-escalation of Commitment in Response to Sunk Costs: The Role of Budgeting in Mental Accounting

Research has traditionally assumed that people increase investment (or "escalate commitment") in response to previous investments (sunk costs). This paper presents several demonstrations which show that people will incorrectly de-escalate investment in response to sunk costs. I propose that people set mental budgets to control their resource expenditures: they set a budget for a class of expenses and track their investments against their budget. A lab study with real monetary incentives shows support for de-escalation and supports a specific rule for how people set budgets - based on the breakeven of total costs and total benefits. The budgeting process suggests that people are only likely to escalate commitment when they fail to set a budget or when expenses are difficult to track. The later part of the paper organizes the previous literature on escalation around these processes and provides additional experiments to illustrate each point. For example, I argue that previous demonstrations that have shown errors of escalation exclusively involve "incidental" investments that are difficult to track. A study in the current paper shows that people are more willing to invest time than money to salvage a monetary sunk cost and more willing to invest money than time to salvage a sunk cost of time, even when the time and money investments are of equal value. The paper concludes by discussing the rationality of escalation and de-escalation.     

Exploring the limits and utility of operant conditioning in the treatment of drug addiction

This article describes a research program to develop an operant treatment for cocaine addiction in low-income, treatment-resistant methadone patients. The treatment's central feature is an abstinence reinforcement contingency in which patients earn monetary reinforcement for providing cocaine-free urine samples. Success and failure of this contingency appear to be an orderly function of familiar parameters of operant conditioning. Increasing reinforcement magnitude and duration can increase effectiveness, and sustaining the contingency can prevent relapse. Initial development of a potentially practical application of this technology suggests that it may be possible to integrate abstinence reinforcement into employment settings using salary for work to reinforce drug abstinence. This research illustrates the potential utility and current limitations of an operant approach to the treatment of drug addiction. Similar research programs are needed to explore the limits of the operant approach and to develop practical applications that can be used widely in society for the treatment of drug addiction.     

Effects of reward magnitude frames on measures of delay discounting in a hypothetical money scenario

The current study analyzed the effects of three frames of reward magnitude—quantity, volume, and duration—on the rate at which college students discounted hypothetical, delayed monetary rewards. Hypothetical scenarios were presented using the fill-in-the-blank discounting questionnaire and participants made choices between immediate and delayed hypothetical monetary rewards. Scenarios framed the monetary choices as (a) quantity of dollar bills, (b) height (inches) of a stack of dollar bills, and (c) duration of time spent in a hypothetical cash machine to collect dollar bills. For each scenario, participants' subjective values were used to calculate the area under the curve (AuC). Framing resulted in a moderate effect size: The duration frame yielded significantly smaller AuC values compared to the quantity and volume frames. Thus, the framing of reward magnitude was a significant variable in controlling discounting rates for hypothetical, delayed monetary rewards. Subsequent investigations should be aware of the independent effects of the reward magnitude frames on delay discounting rates.     

物质成瘾领域延迟折扣研究中的外部效度问题

物质成瘾者的跨期决策缺陷已被大量使用金钱延迟折扣任务的研究所证实。然而近年来, 来自金钱延迟折扣任务变式(成瘾物质延迟折扣任务、性延迟折扣任务和跨类别延迟折扣任务)的发现表明, 在物质成瘾领域的延迟折扣研究中单一使用金钱延迟折扣任务存在一定的局限性。首先, 物质成瘾者对金钱的延迟折扣水平可能并不能完全代表其对成瘾物质、性和其它自然奖赏的延迟折扣水平; 其次, 仅使用单一延迟折扣任务可能存在对物质成瘾者跨期决策过程的过度简化; 最后, 金钱延迟折扣任务较其变式对物质成瘾者的一些临床特征不够敏感。未来研究应进一步丰富、拓展物质成瘾领域的跨类别延迟折扣研究, 并对可能影响跨期决策的时间因素进行深入探索。     

An alternative perspective on von Winterfeldt et al.'s (1997) test of consequence monotonicity

D. von Winterfeldt, N.-K. Chung, R. D. Luce, and Y. Cho (1997) provided several tests for consequence monotonicity of choice or judgment, using certainty equivalents of gambles. The authors reaxiomatized consequence monotonicity in a probabilistic framework and reanalyzed von Winterfeldt et al.'s main experiment via a bootstrap method. Their application offers new insights into consequence monotonicity as well as into von Winterfeldt et al.'s 3 experimental paradigms: judged certainty equivalents (JCE), QUICKINDIFF, and parameter estimation by sequential testing (PEST). For QUICKINDIFF, the authors found no indication of violations of "random consequence monotonicity." This sharply contrasts the findings of von Winterfeldt et al., who concluded that axiom violations were the most pronounced under that procedure. The authors found potential evidence for violations in JCE and certainty equivalents derived from PEST.     

Putting a Price tag on Healthy Behavior: The Monetary Value of Sports Participation to Individuals

This study estimates the monetary value of sports and physical activity applying the compensation variation method. While previous studies put a price tag on various health conditions, this study assigns a monetary value to healthy behavior, such as participation in sports and physical activity. Data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (1992–2013) are used for the analysis (n = 191,828). A generalized ordered response model is estimated to take the heterogeneity in the dependent variable, a single-item life satisfaction measure, into account. The results show that females (males) would be willing to forgo between €195 and €840 (€330 and €790) of their monthly net income in order to participate in sports and physical activity several times a year. A higher frequency of participation is associated with higher monetary values: females (males) are willing to forgo between €552 and €1281 (€491 and €1483) of their monthly net income to participate in sports or exercise at least once a month and between €577 and €1471 (€577 and €1662) to participate at least once a week, respectively, compared to not participating at all. Evidently, participation in sports and physical activity improves individuals’ life satisfaction and is of substantial value to individuals. The findings have implications for health economists, policy makers, and the courts. This study contributes to the literature examining the relationship between sports participation and well-being.     

Motivational processes and behavioral inhibition in breath holding

Large individual differences in breathing performance have made it difficult to investigate the effects of psychological variables on respiratory parameters. This study uses an experimental approach to investigating the effects of attentional and motivational factors on breath-holding span in humans. The effects of shock threat (negative incentive), monetary reward (positive incentive), and mantra meditation (attentional control) on breath-holding span at functional residual capacity (FRC) were compared. Based on Jeffrey Gray's (1975, 1987) theory of behavioral inhibition, it was predicted that shock threat would extend FRC breath holding. Breath holding was increased under the shock threat condition but not under the monetary reward or mantra meditation conditions.     

不同类型反馈对儿童学习效果的影响及性别差异

儿童阶段是对外部反馈最敏感的阶段。以往研究发现,不同类型反馈（积极/消极反馈）和不同性质的强化物（物质/社会性强化）对儿童学习效果存在交互作用,并且对不同性别儿童的影响有所不同。本研究通过两个实验,采用联结学习范式以考察不同类型反馈对8~10岁儿童学习效果的影响。首先考察了积极反馈和消极反馈对儿童学习效果的影响,进而在积极、消极反馈的基础上加入了物质、社会性强化物,探究物质、社会性强化条件下积极、消极反馈对儿童学习效果影响的性别差异。结果表明,对于8~10岁儿童来说,消极反馈比积极反馈对儿童学习效果的影响更大。并且,物质、社会性强化物对儿童反馈学习效果的影响存在性别差异,对于男孩来说,在物质性强化条件下,消极反馈更能促进其学习;而对于女孩来说,在社会性强化物下,消极反馈更能促进她们的学习。该研究为如何运用反馈促进儿童学习提供了实证依据。