IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/mktlet/v16y2005i3p347-360.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Psychology of Intertemporal Discounting: Why are Distant Events Valued Differently from Proximal Ones?

Author

Listed:
  • Dilip Soman
  • George Ainslie
  • Shane Frederick
  • Xiuping Li
  • John Lynch
  • Page Moreau
  • Andrew Mitchell
  • Daniel Read
  • Alan Sawyer
  • Yaacov Trope
  • Klaus Wertenbroch
  • Gal Zauberman

Abstract

Research in intertemporal choice has been done in a variety of contexts, yet there is a remarkable consensus that future outcomes are discounted (or undervalued) relative to immediate outcomes. In this paper, we (a) review some of the key findings in the literature, (b) critically examine and articulate implicit assumptions, (c) distinguish between intertemporal effects arising due to time preference versus those due to changes in utility as a function of time, and (d) identify issues and questions that we believe serve as avenues for future research. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005

Suggested Citation

  • Dilip Soman & George Ainslie & Shane Frederick & Xiuping Li & John Lynch & Page Moreau & Andrew Mitchell & Daniel Read & Alan Sawyer & Yaacov Trope & Klaus Wertenbroch & Gal Zauberman, 2005. "The Psychology of Intertemporal Discounting: Why are Distant Events Valued Differently from Proximal Ones?," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 347-360, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:mktlet:v:16:y:2005:i:3:p:347-360
    DOI: 10.1007/s11002-005-5897-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11002-005-5897-x
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11002-005-5897-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Soman, Dilip, 2004. "The effect of time delay on multi-attribute choice," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 153-175, April.
    2. Loewenstein, George, 1996. "Out of Control: Visceral Influences on Behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 272-292, March.
    3. Hoch, Stephen J & Loewenstein, George F, 1991. "Time-Inconsistent Preferences and Consumer Self-Control," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 17(4), pages 492-507, March.
    4. Klaus Wertenbroch, 1998. "Consumption Self-Control by Rationing Purchase Quantities of Virtue and Vice," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 317-337.
    5. R. H. Strotz, 1955. "Myopia and Inconsistency in Dynamic Utility Maximization," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 23(3), pages 165-180.
    6. Thaler, Richard H & Shefrin, H M, 1981. "An Economic Theory of Self-Control," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(2), pages 392-406, April.
    7. George F. Loewenstein, 1988. "Frames of Mind in Intertemporal Choice," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(2), pages 200-214, February.
    8. Jerry A. Hausman, 1979. "Individual Discount Rates and the Purchase and Utilization of Energy-Using Durables," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 33-54, Spring.
    9. Loewenstein, George, 1987. "Anticipation and the Valuation of Delayed Consumption," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(387), pages 666-684, September.
    10. Samuel H. Preston & Michael R. Haines, 1991. "References," NBER Chapters, in: Fatal Years: Child Mortality in Late Nineteenth-Century America, pages 237-258, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Shane Frederick & George Loewenstein & Ted O'Donoghue, 2002. "Time Discounting and Time Preference: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 351-401, June.
    12. Read, Daniel & van Leeuwen, Barbara, 1998. "Predicting Hunger: The Effects of Appetite and Delay on Choice, , , ," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 189-205, November.
    13. Akerlof, George A, 1991. "Procrastination and Obedience," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 1-19, May.
    14. Thaler, Richard, 1981. "Some empirical evidence on dynamic inconsistency," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 201-207.
    15. David Laibson, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 443-478.
    16. Read, Daniel, 2001. "Is Time-Discounting Hyperbolic or Subadditive?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 5-32, July.
    17. Paul A. Samuelson, 1937. "A Note on Measurement of Utility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 4(2), pages 155-161.
    18. Schelling, Thomas C, 1984. "Self-Command in Practice, in Policy, and in a Theory of Rational Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(2), pages 1-11, May.
    19. Rook, Dennis W, 1987. "The Buying Impulse," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 14(2), pages 189-199, September.
    20. Charles T. Clotfelter & Ronald G. Ehrenberg & Malcolm Getz & John J. Siegfried, 1991. "References," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Challenges in Higher Education, pages 393-410, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Hornik, Jacob, 1984. "Subjective vs. Objective Time Measures: A Note on the Perception of Time in Consumer Behavior," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 11(1), pages 615-618, June.
    22. Zauberman, Gal, 2003. "The Intertemporal Dynamics of Consumer Lock-In," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 30(3), pages 405-419, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Read, Daniel & Roelofsma, Peter H. M. P., 2003. "Subadditive versus hyperbolic discounting: A comparison of choice and matching," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 140-153, July.
    2. Dai, Xianchi & Fishbach, Ayelet, 2013. "When waiting to choose increases patience," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 256-266.
    3. Fernando S. Machado & Rajiv K. Sinha, 2007. "Smoking Cessation: A Model of Planned vs. Actual Behavior for Time-Inconsistent Consumers," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(6), pages 834-850, 11-12.
    4. Scholten, Marc & Read, Daniel, 2006. "Beyond discounting: the tradeoff model of intertemporal choice," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 22710, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Venkataraghavan Krishnaswamy & R. P. Sundarraj, 2019. "Impatience Characteristics in Cloud-Computing-Services Procurement: Effects of Delay Horizon and Situational Involvement," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 28(5), pages 961-990, October.
    6. W. David Bradford & Paul Dolan & Matteo M. Galizzi, 2019. "Looking ahead: Subjective time perception and individual discounting," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 43-69, February.
    7. Serdar Sayman & Ayse Öncüler, 2009. "An Investigation of Time Inconsistency," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(3), pages 470-482, March.
    8. Faralla, Valeria & Novarese, Marco & Ardizzone, Antonella, 2017. "Framing Effects in Intertemporal Choice: A Nudge Experiment," MPRA Paper 82086, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Tomáš Želinský, 2015. "Nekonzistentnosť časových preferencií ľudí z arginalizovaných rómskych komunít [On inconsistency of time preferences of people from the marginalised roma communities]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2015(2), pages 204-222.
    10. Katharina Dowling & Daniel Guhl & Daniel Klapper & Martin Spann & Lucas Stich & Narine Yegoryan, 2020. "Behavioral biases in marketing," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 449-477, May.
    11. Takeo Hori & Koichi Futagami, 2019. "A Non‐unitary Discount Rate Model," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 86(341), pages 139-165, January.
    12. Marco Casari, 2009. "Pre-commitment and flexibility in a time decision experiment," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 117-141, April.
    13. James Andreoni & Christina Gravert & Michael A. Kuhn & Silvia Saccardo & Yang Yang, 2018. "Arbitrage Or Narrow Bracketing? On Using Money to Measure Intertemporal Preferences," NBER Working Papers 25232, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Matthew Rabin & Ted O'Donoghue, 1999. "Doing It Now or Later," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 103-124, March.
    15. Teck H. Ho & Noah Lim & Colin Camerer, 2005. "Modeling the Psychology of Consumer and Firm Behavior with Behavioral Economics," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000476, UCLA Department of Economics.
    16. Manzini, Paola & Mariotti, Marco, 2007. "Choice Over Time," IZA Discussion Papers 2993, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Kovács, Kármen, 2020. "A jelen felé torzított preferenciák. A türelmetlenségből eredő fogyasztási döntések okai, megnyilvánulásai és következményei [The causes, manifestations and consequences of consumption decisions re," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(1), pages 31-53.
    18. Bölcskei, Vanda, 2009. "Az intertemporális döntések viselkedési közgazdaságtani modelljeinek áttekintése [A review of the models of inter-temporal decision-making in behavioural economics]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(11), pages 1025-1040.
    19. Richard Schaefer & Raghunath Singh Rao & Vijay Mahajan, 2018. "Marketing Self-Improvement Programs for Self-Signaling Consumers," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(6), pages 912-929, November.
    20. Roberts, Annabelle R. & Fishbach, Ayelet, 2020. "When wanting closure reduces patients’ patience," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 161(S), pages 85-94.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:mktlet:v:16:y:2005:i:3:p:347-360. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.