Lick to the End or Bite Before Finishing? Experimental Evidence on the Relationship with Intertemporal Choice

This study examines whether impatience measured by hypothetical monetary intertemporal choices is reflected in an observable consumption behavior, namely candy consumption. Participants first answered a series of hypothetical intertemporal-choice questions involving both monetary gains and monetary payments and then completed a candy-consumption task. Realized behavior was classified from the reported completion status at the end of the task as licking the candy to the end, biting it before finishing, or being censored after 20 minutes, while completion time was recorded from QR-code scans at the beginning and end of the task. Using a strict sample restricted to respondents who passed consistency and attention checks, we find suggestive but meaningful evidence that participants who bit the candy displayed greater impatience in monetary choices than those who licked it to the end. The average difference across all questions is modest, and the sharper contrast in some payment questions should be interpreted as exploratory. Participants who bit the candy also completed the task significantly faster. In addition, self-reported usual eating style is moderately consistent with realized behavior in the task. These findings suggest that candy-consumption behavior may serve as a behavioral indicator broadly consistent with impatience, while also indicating that it should not be interpreted as a structural estimate of an individual's discount rate.