Investigating the effectiveness of episodic future thinking in reducing delay discounting rates of financially deprived consumers.

(1)

Investigating the effectiveness of episodic future thinking in reducing

delay discounting rates of financially deprived consumers.

(2)

2

Investigating the effectiveness of episodic future thinking in reducing

delay discounting rates of financially deprived consumers.

University of Groningen Faculty of Economic and Business Master Thesis, MSc Marketing Management

Completion date: January 12th_{, 2018}

First supervisor: Dr. Mehrad Moeini Jazani Second supervisor: Dr. Martijn Keizer

Chiara Pozzoni Via lungo Mallero Diaz 38

23100 Sondrio, Italy +393408231682 c.pozzoni@student.rug.nl

(3)

3

Abstract

Delay discounting, the choice of small immediate rewards as opposed to larger delayed rewards, is typical of consumers in disadvantaged economic conditions and traps them into a vicious cycle inhibiting them from escaping their poverty state. One way to reduce delay discounting that has proved effective in a number of studies with other likewise present-biased populations is episodic future thinking (EFT), i.e. the ability to

project oneself into the future to pre-experience an event. Building on this findings, we investigated the

effectiveness of EFT in the context of poverty alleviation. Results from a 2 (financial satisfaction vs. financial

deprivation) x 2 (episodic future thinking vs. control condition) between-subject design experiment, including

two monetary intertemporal choice tasks, show that a) consistent with previous research, a main relationship exists between financial constraints and delay discounting, and b) confirming our intuition, episodic future thinking can moderate such relationship. Specifically, engagement in EFT under the condition of perceived

financial deprivation, compared to perceived financial satisfaction, results in a greater reduction of

individuals’ delay discounting in intertemporal choice. We also explored a number of plausible mechanisms to investigate what may be the exact process underlying the found interaction effect but, unfortunately, none of the psychological variables tested was found to statistically mediate our findings.

(4)

4

List of figures

Figure 1: Conceptual model... 1112

Figure 2: Level of AUC per condition ... 1718

Figure 3: Descriptive statistics (positive affect) ... 1819

Figure 4: Moderated mediation conceptual diagram (positive affect) ... 19

Figure 5: Descriptive statistics (negative affect) ... 1920

Figure 6: Moderated mediation conceptual diagram (negative affect) ... 20

Figure 7: Descriptive statistics (future-self connection) ... 2021

Figure 8: Moderated mediation conceptual diagram (future-self connection) ... 21

Figure 9: Descriptive statistics (subjective time perception) ... 2122

Figure 10: Moderated mediation conceptual diagram (subjective time perception) ... 22

Figure 12: Descriptive statistics (personal mastery) ... 2223

Figure 12: Moderated mediation conceptual diagram (personal mastery) ... 23

Figure 13: Descriptive statistics (perceived constraint) ... 2324

(6)

6

1. Introduction

Financial constraint is associated with excessive discounting of delayed rewards (Mani et al. 2013; Shah, Mullainathan, Shafir 2012). Thus, while to some extent all consumers typically prefer immediate gratification when presented with intertemporal choice, this myopic tendency is especially pronounced in those suffering from disadvantaged economic conditions. Indeed, the latter engage in a number of counterproductive behaviours, such as questionable management of own finances, inadequate investments in health, or preference for unskilled paid work over higher education and generally show inclination towards all those attitudes and practices that prioritize smaller immediate gratifications over future potential earnings and financial security (Farah & Hook 2017). Critically, steep future discounting in financially deprived individuals, especially in relation to economic decisions, traps them in a vicious cycle inhibiting them from escaping their poverty state: “Poverty leads to short-sighted choices that in turn lead to poverty” (Haushofer & Fehr 2014, p.5401). Although in the past decade a growing number of studies in economy, psychology and sociology have provided different reasons and evidence as to why financial constraints increase future myopia (Jachimowicz et al. 2017), less is known about interventions that may assist these consumers in becoming more patient in their choices and consequently enable them to escape the “poverty trap”. Thus, in the present study we address this gap in the literature and suggest a viable solution to this overarching issue. Specifically, we propose engagement in episodic future thinking (EFT), the ability to project the self forward in time to pre-experience an event (Atance & O’Neill 2001), as a remedy to reduce the impatience (May 2017) of financially deprived consumers. This intuition originates by existing evidence of the effectiveness of EFT in lowering discount-delay rates in different populations likewise displaying impulsive behaviours, such as obese or alcohol-dependent individuals (e.g. Daniel, Stanton, and Epstein 2013a; Snider, LaConte, and Bickel 2016). Hence, in accordance with these promising results, typically high discounting rates exhibited by financially deprived people may be significantly lowered by means of EFT. To date no study has been made to investigate the effectiveness of EFT in the context of poverty alleviation. This possibility is worth of attention, as it may be feasible to translate EFT (also referred to as prospective thinking) into an effective intervention tool. Crucially, if trained to engage in EFT when dealing with intertemporal choices, consumers may effortlessly achieve control of their impulsive behaviour, act in accordance to their long-term interests and, as such, break the poverty vicious cycle they are trapped into.

(7)

7 of a conclusion chapter, highlighting implication of our findings and providing recommendations for future research. Finally, limitations of the study are addressed.

2. Theoretical Framework

2.1 Financial constraints and present bias

According to the most recent global estimates (World Bank 2016), one out of ten people, i.e. 767 million individuals, live under the international poverty line of US$1.90 a day. As to the regional dimension of such phenomenon, Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for half of the extreme poor (50.7%), South Asia for one-third (33.4%), followed by East Asia and Pacific (9.3%), Latin America and the Caribbean (4.4%), and, to a lesser extent, by Eastern Europe and Central Asia (1.4%), with the remaining spread across the rest of the world. While there has been marked progress in reducing extreme poverty over the last twenty years, these numbers are a clear indication that much remains to be done to put a permanent end to this phenomenon. Furthermore, when considering relative poverty (defined as living on less than 60% of the average national income), it is estimated that not only in 2012 such condition concerned over 300 million people in developed countries, but that this number is on the rise, especially in Europe (International Labour Office 2016).

A main issue concerning financially deprived people all over the world is their tendency towards myopic decision making. Evidence has shown that lower wealth, regardless of its severity and of the nationality of the subjects involved, predicts future myopia, holding true for Ethiopian farmers (Yesuf & Bluffstone 2008), as well as for US households (Lawrence 1991), Indian villagers (Pender 1996) or Croatian retirees (Brown, Ivković, and Weisbenner 2015). For instance, in the context of a policy change in Croatia, which gave people the choice to finance their retirement through either immediate or more deferred, higher payments, it was observed that lower-income individuals selected the first option, instead of the second, more financially attractive one (Brown, Ivković, and Weisbenner 2015). On the same note, among 262 farm households in Ethiopia participating in an experiment with real payoffs, those less wealthy systematically preferred current over delayed rewards (Yesuf & Bluffstone 2008).

(8)

8 Over the years, research in the field of economy, sociology and psychology has not only provided further evidence on the existence of the relationship between poverty and myopic tendency, but also tried to identify the reason as to why this present bias occurs. Preliminary findings from economical and sociological theories blamed respectively “poor people’s lack of opportunities to alleviate their impoverished situation” and “the existence of a culture of poverty entailing misguided goals and motives” (Jachimowicz et al. 2017, p.5401). Instead, a more recent perspective suggests the existence of a psychological dimension of poverty directly affecting individuals’ information processing. Among the first to support the latter theory, the works of Shah et al. (2012) and Mani et al. (2013) illustrated how material scarcity seems to shift attention of individuals on poverty related concerns, consuming their mental resources and leaving them with less capacity for other tasks, resulting in impaired cognitive ability. While the research of Shah et al. (2012), consisting of five experiments, was restricted to a laboratory setting, Mani et al. (2013) decided to validate their results on the field. In particular, their first experiment presented participants (previously classified as poor or rich, based on their income) with hypothetical scenarios intended to trigger financial concerns and subsequently asked them to perform tasks that measured their mental ability. Participants with lower income showed worse cognitive performance than others. To address the external validity of this study, the authors’ new sample consisted of Indian farmers. These were given cognitive tests before harvest, when they were faced with great financial pressure, and after harvest, after the receipt of payments. Consistent with their previous findings, farmers performed comparably worse in the pre-harvest condition. Suggesting a different but related psychological driver of myopic behaviour, Haushofer & Fehr (2014) proposed that stress and negative affect partly accounted for the results obtained in the previously mentioned field study of Mani et al. According to them, these feelings, typically elicited by material scarcity, are responsible for an attentional shift towards salient cues, in this case represented by immediate consumption (versus delayed consumption), which may in turn explain the present bias of financially constrained individuals. As to some of the latest research in this direction, Bickel et al. (2016) reproduced one experiment of Haushofer et al. (2013) in which participants showed increased discount rates as a result of hypothetical negative income shocks and changes in income ranking among peers. Both in the first and in the most recent version of the experiment, which controlled for additional manipulations, myopic decision making of individuals in the “economically disadvantaged” condition was accompanied by a worsened mood, providing additional evidence on the more or less fundamental role played by negative affect in the said mechanism.

(9)

9 conducted three experiments: in the first two, individuals were explicitly and implicitly exposed to either poverty or affluence cues, represented by pictures, and in the third, poverty and affluence status were manipulated in the context of an interactive game. When subsequently asked to engage in an intertemporal task, participants in the poverty cues preferred immediate gratification compared to those in the affluence state and these results were consistent among the different experiments. In short, manipulating subjects to change their poverty-affluence status, without actually altering the reality of their economic condition (what laboratory and field experiments researching on the topic do), is sufficient to observe an increase in present bias. Aside from the experimental field, this means that in the real world consumers perceiving themselves as being financially constrained are likely to resort to myopic decisions just as much as those actually living in poverty conditions, with all the implications discussed at the beginning of this chapter.

To summarize, this first chapter reviewed the existing literature on how poverty (or just the feeling of it) has been proven to be strictly connected to myopic decision making, in a self-reinforcing vicious cycle preventing financially constrained individuals to alleviate their situation. Although many explanations have been provided as to why this reciprocal causal relationship holds, less is known about interventions and methods that might enable the poor to reduce their present bias and engage in more far-sighted decision making. Thus, in the next section a viable way to address this gap in the literature is proposed.

2.2 Episodic future thinking: a remedy for impatience among the financially constrained

Episodic future thinking (EFT), also referred to as episodic prospection or prospective thinking, has been defined as the ability to project oneself into the future to pre-experience an event (Atance & O’Neill 2001). EFT is thought to be a unique feature of the human kind, emerging between the third and fourth years of age, entailing a mature understanding of the future, which goes behind the simple knowledge of familiar, routine events, allowing instead for the foresight of oneself into novel or uncertain events (Atance & O’Neill 2005). In the past decade, growing cognitive and neuroscience research has been devoted to the delineation of the neural mechanisms and functions of EFT. In particular, studies on neural mechanisms have tried to delineate the specific contribution of different brain regions to episodic future thinking and the processes that each of them supports, while research on functions has established the beneficial influence of EFT in several domains, such as decision making, emotion regulation, prospective memory and spatial navigation (for a complete review, see Schacter et al. 2017).

As stated in the previous section, according to the discounting paradigm individuals tend to prefer smaller immediate rewards over larger delayed ones (Read et al. 2005; Zauberman et al. 2009). It has been widely argued that engagement in episodic future thinking can decrease this tendency (Liu et al. 2013).

(10)

10 magnetic resonance imaging) to show that episodic prospection reduces delay discounting through “a modulation of neural decision-making and episodic prospection networks” (Peters & Büchel 2010, p.138) and argued that the degree of reduction depends on the vividness of the prospective image. Another neuroimaging study (Benoit et al. 2011) confirmed that engagement in EFT activates specific brain regions, while also enhancing consideration of future rewards, which could eventually explain the shift of time perspective in intertemporal decision making.

(11)

11 As illustrated in the first section of this theoretical review, present bias, or impatience, has been proved to be a peculiar feature of financially constrained individuals and to cause them to behave in such myopic ways that perpetuate their disadvantaged state. Research on different populations, such as obese people and alcohol abusers, likewise tending to favour immediate rewards over delayed ones, has provided strong evidence of the effectiveness of episodic future thinking in reducing such tendency. Given the promising results obtained in these studies, EFT may one day be employed in specific training procedures to control impatient behaviours accountable for a range of suboptimal decisions in one’s life. Thus, beyond the samples already considered, EFT could represent a viable intervention tool to aid financially constrained individuals in controlling their impatience, so to finally escape the poverty trap. Since to date no study has investigated the potential utility of EFT in the context of poverty alleviation, the present study will test this possibility. In other words, it will be investigated whether episodic future thinking has a moderating effect on the main relationship between perceived financial constraints and delay discounting, such that the poor become more patient after engaging in episodic future thinking. We expect the reparative effect of EFT on discounting to be larger among the poor consumers, relative to the financially satisfied consumers.

To conclude, we formally state our two main hypotheses in this thesis. First, replicating past findings on the link between poverty feelings and impatience, we hypothesize:

H1: relative to people who are financially satisfied, financially deprived consumers show more impatience in

intertemporal decisions. .

Our second hypothesis is related to the moderating role of EFT on the link between poverty feelings and impatience. Formally stating:

H2: The reparative effect of episodic future thinking in reducing impatience is stronger (weaker) among

financially deprived (satisfied) consumers. .

Figure 1 depicts the two mentioned hypotheses, where “financial constraints” and “delay discounting” are respectively independent and dependent variable, and “episodic future thinking” is the moderator, are illustrated in a conceptual model (Figure 1).

(12)

12

2.3 Speculations on the underlying mechanism

So far, we introduced episodic future thinking (EFT) as a potential remedy for reducing impatience among the financially constrained consumers. Assuming that we find support for our proposition, the question remains as to what might be the cause of such effect. Several plausible candidates exist and are discussed in this section.

First, positive affect might be one mechanism through which EFT might extend its reparative effects among the poor. Indeed, Liu et al. (2013) pointed out that most evidence of the relation between EFT and reduced delay discounting stemmed from studies in which participants were asked to engage in future prospection of exclusively positive events. Thus, EFT might have increased (decreased) positive affect (negative affect), which then reduced impatience in discounting. Liu et al. (2013) backed up their argument across three experiments and found support for the effects of EFT on reduced delay discounting through increased positive affect. Recently, however, Lin & Epstein (2014) judged the affective component of episodic prospection to be superfluous, as in their study both neutral and positive EFT resulted in decreased delay discounting, critically highlighting the importance of future connection, rather than positive affect, in how EFT influences discounting. Despite the controversies as to whether EFT increases positive affect, in the present study we aim to measure participants’ affect after EFT intervention to examine whether this influences delay discounting of participants. This is particularly important in our case because financially constrained people usually experience negative affect, and thus interventions such as positive EFT might have a larger effect on boosting their positive affect than it does for financially adequate people. As a result, change in positive affect might then be a potential mechanisms through which EFT reduces delay discounting among the poor.

(13)

13 Third, episodic future thinking may directly modulate one’s subjective time perception. Zauberman et al. (2009) questioned previous research attributing individuals’ intertemporal preferences to their valuation of outcomes, or rewards, at different points in time. The authors offered instead a different perspective, suggesting that “people’s perceptions of duration itself (i.e., the time horizon over which a decision takes place)” plays an important role in intertemporal choice. Across four experiments, they showed how individuals’ subjective estimates of (future) duration does not exactly reflect objective time, and that such discrepancy, also referred to as prospective duration insensitivity, can help explain present-biased preferences. Thus, following this logic, financially constrained consumers’ intertemporal behaviour may be driven, at least partly, by how they perceive the length of the delays they are faced with. It may be the case that engagement in episodic future thinking can alter such perception. To examine this possibility, in the present research we also measure subjective time perception to see if it mediates the expected interaction between financial constraint and EFT.

Lastly, our fourth candidate for the underlying process comes from a recent study of Bulley & Suddendorf (2016). Their reasoning was based on the work of Kahneman & Tversky (1982) on how “mentally simulating a possible future event may provide information about the likelihood of its occurrence” (Bulley & Suddendorf 2016, p.9) and on following experimental evidence showing how imagining future events indeed boosts their subjective plausibility. The authors concluded that, in intertemporal choice, the assessment of the likelihood of future events induced by imagining the said events may allow individuals to recognize those circumstances in which a delayed gratification, over an immediate one, should be preferred. As such, EFT could “reassure” decision makers on the future materialization of those delayed rewards, which would otherwise be rejected precisely because of the uncertainty surrounding their eventual realization. For this reason, participants’ sense of control is an additional measurement in the present research.

(14)

14

3. Methodology

3.1 Participants and design

Our hypotheses were tested through an experiment, with a 2x2 between-subjects design, requiring participants to complete an online anonymous survey using Qualtrics software. Respondents were first randomly assigned to either a financially satisfied or a financially deprived condition, and subsequently randomly assigned to either an episodic future thinking (EFT) or a control condition. All participants were recruited online via Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The use of this crowdsourcing platform allowed us to gather a large sample whose demographics were diverse and crucially not limited to the university population

(Buhrmester, Kwang, and Gosling 2011). Sample size was predetermined. Specifically, we sought adequate

power to detect a small-sized interaction effect (f = 0.11), if it was present. A power analysis, using G*Power (v 3.1), to estimate the required sample size to have power of 0.80 (Faul, Erdfelder, Buchner, & Lang, 2009) yielded a sample size of 650. A total of 765 MTurk participants took part in our study, on a voluntary basis, in exchange for a financial compensation of 0.80$ per respondent conditional upon successful completion of the survey. After inspection of data, 91 participants were excluded because they either did not complete parts of the survey, did not follow instructions properly, or failed our attention check question (IMC; Oppenheimer, Meyvis, & Davidenko 2009). Therefore, the final analysis was conducted on a sample of n=673

participants (MAge=37.1, SD=10.71, RangeAge=18-65, 400 female). This provides us with sufficient power (80%)

for our analysis.

3.2 Procedure

The survey was structured as follows: after a brief introduction and consent statement, participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: financial satisfaction or financial deprivation, and were presented with the corresponding manipulation tasks. After manipulating feelings of financial satisfaction or deprivation among participants, a second randomizer assigned them to either an episodic future thinking (EFT) condition or to a control condition, both entailing one or more writing tasks, followed by two monetary intertemporal choice tasks. The last part of the survey consisted of a few questions related to participants’ demographics and personal characteristics.

(15)

15 relative financial satisfaction, while respondents to the 50,000$ (and above) scale should feel financially deprived. To further reinforce the effectiveness of the manipulation, participants were given a feedback about their financial situation. Those in the financial satisfaction condition were presented with a text telling them they had adequate and sufficient amount of financial resources (i.e. money), relative to others. They were then asked to consider how it feels to be financially adequate and to have sufficient money to use at their will or when required in daily life, relative to other people who do not, and to write their considerations about this in a short essay. Instead, participants in the financial deprivation condition were told they lacked financial resources, relative to others, and were asked to consider the factors limiting such financial resources (e.g. mortgage or rent, expenses, lack of income, etc.). As for the other group, they were then asked to briefly report in writing their feelings on being financially inadequate and not having sufficient money to use at their will or when required in daily life, relative to those who have more than sufficient disposable income and financial resources. (See Appendix A for detailed instructions of the financial constraints manipulation).

After the independent variable manipulation, participants were again randomly assigned to one of two conditions: episodic future thinking (EFT) or control group. The EFT task asked participants to think about a specific future event they looked forward to, happening in 6 months from that day. Respondents were instructed to vividly imagine such event and write a few lines describing in detail the circumstances surrounding it. Next, participants did the same for a future time in 9 months. This procedure was adapted from the studies of Daniel, Stanton, and Epstein (2013a; 2013b) (See Appendix B for detailed instructions of the EFT manipulation). In contrast to the EFT condition, the aim of the control condition was to avoid activating any future thoughts. Therefore, participants in the control condition were simply asked to list two common knowledge facts that they knew of. Next, all respondents had to complete a monetary intertemporal choice task, or delay discounting (DD) task, in which they had to specify the amount of money (in US dollars) they would require in six months and in nine months in the future to make them indifferent to receiving 65$ immediately (Van den Bergh, Dewitte, and Warlop 2008; Zauberman et al. 2009). Based on the result of this task, our dependent variable (delay discounting or impatience in intertemporal choice) was achieved by calculating participants’ “area under the empirical discounting curve” or AUC (Myerson et al. 2001). The AUC is a standardized measure ranging from zero (steepest possible discounting or extreme

impatience) to one (no discounting or extreme patience). Prior to each delay discounting task, participants in

the EFT condition were instructed to read once again their own autobiographic short essay about the future event that corresponded to the time period, either six or nine months, they were making decisions about. This manipulation adopted by Peters & Büchel (2010) has proven reliability and effectiveness in subsequent studies.

(16)

16 the approach described by Zauberman et al. (2009). After each DD task, participants had to answer the question “How long do you consider the duration between today and a day 6 months (or 9 months) in the future?” by moving a computerized slider with end-points labelled “very short” on the left end and “very long” on the right end. Next, we measured future-self connection with a scale adopted from Ersner-Hershfield, Hal, et al. (2009). Specifically, participants were asked to indicate how similar/connected or dissimilar/disconnected they felt to their future-self in six months (or nine months) by selecting an option out of a 7-point scale. The scale consisted of two circles arranged from no overlap (i.e., representing no similarity between the current self and the future self) to almost complete overlap visually representing maximum similarity and connection (See Appendix C). Further, we measured participants’ affective states using a 24 items PANAS (positive and negative affect schedule) scale, developed by Watson, Clark, and Tellegen (1988). The 12 positive items were averaged into a positive affect variable and the 12 negatives were averaged into a negative affect variable. Finally, we measured participants’ sense of control using a well-established scale developed by Lachman and Weaver (1998). Participants had to indicate their agreement with twelve statements on a 7-point Likert scale. The first four items were related to personal mastery subscale, and the last eight were related to perceived constraints subscale of sense of control (See Appendix D). Each group of items was then aggregated into two distinct control indexes.

To conclude the survey, respondents had to answer a number of questions about demographics (age, gender, ethnicity, education level, employment status and income), English proficiency and degree of attentiveness during the completion of the study. An attention check, or “instructional manipulation check” (IMC), was also included to determine participants’ attention to the survey’s instructions.

4. Results

4.1 Main Analysis

To test our hypothesis that episodic future thinking reduces delay discounting (or impatience) of financially constrained individuals, we subjected participants’ AUC (area under the empirical discounting curve) to a 2 (financial satisfaction vs. financial deprivation) x 2 (episodic future thinking vs. control condition) between-subjects ANOVA. Results revealed a main effect of financial constraints, F(1, 669)=14.73, p<.001, η2

p=.02, a

main effect of episodic future thinking (EFT), F(1, 669)=5.85, p=.016, η2

p=.01 and the hypothesised two-way

interaction between financial constraints and episodic future thinking (EFT), F(1, 669)=7.34, p=.007, η2 p=.01.

(See appendix E for detailed results of between-subjects ANOVA).

(17)

17 SD=.29) than did those in the control condition (M=.54, SD=.16; F(1, 669) =13.77, p<.001 , η2

p=.02, 95% CI Mean-Differences = [.04, .13]). However, among participants in the financial satisfaction condition, there was no significant difference in AUC, or impatience level, between those who engaged in episodic future thinking (M=.65, SD=.20) and those who did not (M=.65, SD=.19; F(1, 669) =.04, p=.84 , η2

p=.000, 95% CIMean-Differences =

[-.05, .04]). Figure 2 below shows these differences among the four groups.

Looked at differently, analysis of simple effects within both EFT and control condition revealed that, consistent with previous literature, in the control condition (where people simply wrote about two facts they knew of), financially deprived participants showed lower AUC - i.e. more impatience - (M=.54, SD=.16) than did financially satisfied participants (M=.65, SD=.19; F(1, 669) =23.64, p<.001 , η2

p=.03, 95% CIMean-Differences =

[-.15, -.07]). However, among participants in the EFT condition, there was no significant difference in

impatience between those in the financially deprived (M=.63, SD=.29) and those in the financially satisfied conditions (M=.65, SD=.20; F(1, 669) =.6, p=.45 , η2

p=.001, 95% CIMean-Differences = [-.07, .03]), indicating that EFT eradicated the difference in impatience between those who were financially deprived and those who were not.

(18)

18

4.2 Exploring (Potential) Underlying Mechanisms

Having established the hypothesised two-way interaction between financial constraints and episodic future thinking, we further explored the underlying process for this effect by means of moderated mediation analysis using Hayes’ PROCESS macro - model 8 - (Hayes 2013). In particular, we tested whether a) positive (and negative) affect, b) future-self connection, c) subjective time perception, and d) sense of control (including subscales of personal mastery and perceived constraints) mediated the found interaction.

4.2.1 Positive (and negative) affect

First, we regressed participants’ positive affect on financial constraints, EFT and their interaction term. Results revealed a significant interaction between financial constraints and EFT on positive affect (β=-.2444,

p =.04). Next, we regressed participants’ AUC on positive affect, financial constraints, EFT and the interaction

term between financial constraints and EFT. However, results revealed that positive affect did not significantly predict AUC (β=-.0316, p =.59). Indeed, index of moderated mediation using 5000 bootstrapped samples revealed that zero was included in the 95% confidence interval, meaning that overall the moderated-mediation effect was not significant (BBootstrap=.0077, SE=.03, 95% Bootstrap CI [-.04, .07]). (See figure 3 for

descriptive statistics of each experimental group on positive affect). Figure 4 shows the regression coefficients and the index of moderated mediation.

Variable Experimental group Mean Std. Deviation

Positive affect Financial deprivation EFT 2,9480 0,8298

Control 2,7149 0,7927

Financial satisfaction EFT 2,9131 0,8192

Control 2,9450 0,8462

Figure 3: Descriptive statistics (positive affect)

Nevertheless, it should be noted that, when decomposing the total indirect effect, the mediating effect of positive affect was clearly stronger, although non-significant, in the financial deprivation condition (BBootstrap =-.0067, SE=.02, 95% Bootstrap CI [-.06, .03]), than it was in the financial satisfaction condition (BBootstrap=.0010,

(19)

19 Figure 4: Moderated mediation conceptual diagram (positive affect)

Having established that positive affect did not significantly mediated the found interaction, we adopted the same procedure to test for negative affect. First, we regressed participants’ negative affect on financial constraints, EFT and their interaction term. Results revealed a marginally significant interaction between financial constraints and EFT on negative affect (β=.1933, p =.08). Next, we regressed participants’ AUC on negative affect, financial constraints, EFT and the interaction term between financial constraints and EFT. However, results revealed that negative affect did not yet significantly predict AUC (β=.1094, p =.09). Indeed, index of moderated mediation using 5000 bootstrapped samples revealed that zero was included in the 95% confidence interval, meaning that overall the moderated-mediation effect was not significant

(BBootstrap=.0212, SE=.02, 95% Bootstrap CI [-.01, .07]). (See figure 5 for descriptive statistics of each experimental group on negative affect). Figure 6 shows the regression coefficients and the index of moderated mediation.

Negative affect Financial deprivation EFT 1,7550 0,7687

Control 1,8711 0,7654

Control 1,6136 0,6712

Figure 5: Descriptive statistics (negative affect)

It should be noted that, as was the case for positive affect, when decomposing the total indirect effect, the mediating effect of negative affect was clearly stronger, although non-significant, in the financial deprivation condition (BBootstrap=-.0127, SE=.01, 95% Bootstrap CI [-.04, .005]), than it was in the financial satisfaction

(20)

20 Figure 6: Moderated mediation conceptual diagram (negative affect)

4.2.2 Future-self connection

Participants’ future-self connection was first regressed on financial constraints, EFT and their interaction term. Results revealed a significant interaction between financial constraints and EFT on future-self connection (β=-.6902, p =.0046). Subsequently, we regressed participants’ AUC on future-self connection, financial constraints, EFT and the interaction term between financial constraints and EFT. However, results revealed that future-self connection did not significantly predict AUC (β=-.0370, p =.21). Indeed, index of moderated mediation using 5000 bootstrapped samples revealed that zero was included in the 95% confidence interval, meaning that overall the moderated-mediation effect was not significant

(BBootstrap=.0255, SE=.05, 95% Bootstrap CI [-.03, .14]). (See figure 7 for descriptive statistics of each experimental group on future-self connection). Figure 8 shows the regression coefficients and the index of moderated mediation.

Future-self connection

Financial deprivation EFT 4,8762 1,7233

Control 4,5658 1,7742

Control 5,3038 1,5395

Figure 7: Descriptive statistics (future-self connection)

Once again, it should be noted that, when decomposing the total indirect effect, the mediating effect of future-self connection was clearly stronger, although non-significant, in the financial deprivation condition

(BBootstrap=-.0120, SE=.02, 95% Bootstrap CI [-.07, .02]), than it was in the financial satisfaction condition

(21)

21 Figure 8: Moderated mediation conceptual diagram (future-self connection)

4.2.3 Subjective time perception

Firstly, we regressed participants’ subjective perception of time on financial constraints, EFT and their interaction term. Results revealed a marginally significant interaction between financial constraints and EFT on subjective perception of time (β=1.0849, p =.08). Afterwards, we regressed participants’ AUC on subjective perception of time, financial constraints, EFT and the interaction term between financial constraints and EFT. However, results revealed that subjective perception of time did not significantly predict AUC (β=.0070, p =.54). Indeed, index of moderated mediation using 5000 bootstrapped samples revealed that zero was included in the 95% confidence interval, meaning that overall the moderated-mediation effect was not significant (BBootstrap=.0076, SE=.02, 95% Bootstrap CI [-.02, .06]). (See figure 9 for descriptive statistics

of each experimental group on subjective time perception). Figure 10 shows the regression coefficients and the index of moderated mediation.

Subjective time perception

Control 10,4653 4,1385

Control 8,7486 4,3392

Figure 9: Descriptive statistics (subjective time perception)

Also in this case, it should be noted that, when decomposing the total indirect effect, the mediating effect of subjective time perception was clearly stronger, although non-significant, in the financial deprivation condition (BBootstrap=-.0086, SE=.02, 95% Bootstrap CI [-.06, .02]), than it was in the financial satisfaction

(22)

22 Figure 10: Moderated mediation conceptual diagram (subjective time perception)

4.2.4 Sense of control

A possible mediating effect of sense of control was investigated through the analysis of its two constituent variables personal mastery and perceived constraint.

Starting with participants’ personal mastery, we first regressed it on financial constraints, EFT and their interaction term. Results revealed that the interaction between financial constraints and EFT on personal mastery was not significant (β=-.1424, p =.43), suggesting that it is unlikely that personal mastery mediates the interaction between financial constraints and EFT on participants’ AUC. Nevertheless, to be consistent, we ran the full moderated-mediation analysis using Hayes Process Macro, model 8. Thus, we regressed participants’ AUC on personal mastery, financial constraints, EFT and the interaction term between financial constraints and EFT. Again, results revealed that personal mastery did not significantly predict AUC (β=-.0351,

p =.38). Indeed, index of moderated mediation using 5000 bootstrapped samples revealed that zero was

included in the 95% confidence interval, meaning that overall the moderated-mediation effect was not significant (BBootstrap=.0050, SE=.01, 95% Bootstrap CI [-.01, .03]). (See figure 11 for descriptive statistics of

each experimental group on personal mastery). Figure 12 shows the regression coefficients and the index of moderated mediation.

Personal mastery Financial deprivation EFT 5,2723 1,2436

Control 5,0947 1,2793

Control 5,4593 1,1750

Figure 12: Descriptive statistics (personal mastery)

(23)

23

(BBootstrap=-.0011, SE=.01, 95% Bootstrap CI [-.02, .01]).

Figure 12: Moderated mediation conceptual diagram (personal mastery)

As to participants’ perceived constraint, we first regressed it on financial constraints, EFT and their interaction term. Results revealed that the interaction between financial constraints and EFT on perceived constraint was not significant (β=.2179, p =.29), again suggesting that, also in the case of perceive constraint, it is unlikely that this mediates the interaction between financial constraints and EFT on participants’ AUC. As above, we ran the full moderated-mediation analysis to be consistent, using Hayes Process Macro, model 8. We regressed participants’ AUC on perceived constraint, financial constraints, EFT and the interaction term between financial constraints and EFT. Again, results revealed that perceived constraint did not significantly predict AUC (β=.0339, p =.33). Indeed, index of moderated mediation using 5000 bootstrapped samples revealed that zero was included in the 95% confidence interval, meaning that overall the moderated-mediation effect was not significant (BBootstrap=.0074, SE=.01, 95% Bootstrap CI [-.01, .03]). (See figure 13 for

descriptive statistics of each experimental group on perceived constraint). Figure 14 shows the regression coefficients and the index of moderated mediation.

Perceived constraint

Control 3,5553 1,4211

Control 3,0622 1,3944

Figure 13: Descriptive statistics (perceived constraint)

(24)

24

(BBootstrap=-.0037, SE=.01, 95% Bootstrap CI [-.02, .007]).

Figure 14: Moderated mediation conceptual diagram (perceived constraint)

4.3 Discussion

The main analysis explicated above found support for hypotheses 1 and 2 of our study. According to our predictions, results of a 2x2 between-subjects ANOVA and subsequent contrast analyses showed that a) relative to those in the financially satisfied condition, those who were in the financial deprivation condition showed increased preference for immediate rewards in intertemporal choice, consistent with past research (H1); and b) importantly however, we found that engagement in episodic future thinking under the condition of perceived financial deprivation, compared to perceived financial satisfaction, resulted in a greater reduction of individuals’ delay discounting in intertemporal choice (H2). Thus, it can be stated that episodic future thinking (EFT) moderates the main relationship between perceived financial constraints and delay discounting. Simply put, consistent with our reasoning, EFT was more (less) effective in reducing impatience in intertemporal decisions among those who were in the financially deprived (satisfied) condition.

In addition to the main analysis, we used model 8 from Andrew Hayes’ PROCESS macro (2013) to test what psychological variable might be mediating this interaction effect between our IVs and the DV. We explored a number of plausible mechanisms, namely a) positive (and negative) affect, b) future-self connection, c) subjective time perception, and d) sense of control. Unfortunately, none of the above variables was found to statistically mediate our findings. However, when decomposing the total indirect effect for each of these possible mediators, results showed that such effect was always stronger, although not significant, in the financial deprivation condition than in the financial satisfaction condition. In addition, based on the index of moderated mediation using 5000 bootstrapped samples, the effect of future-self connection (BBootstrap=.0255)

(25)

25

5. Conclusion

Consumers in disadvantaged economic conditions typically display high rates of delay discounting, the preference for small immediate rewards as opposed to larger delayed rewards in intertemporal choice. Such tendency is manifested by engagement in a series of counterproductive behaviours and attitudes, which eventually hinder them from improving the precarious state of their household’s finances. Building on the promising results obtained in previous research, where engagement in episodic future thinking proved successful in reducing delay discounting for a range of typically present-biased populations, we investigated the effectiveness of EFT in the context of poverty alleviation. Results from our 2x2 between-subject design experiment not only validated the robust phenomenon of a main relationship existing between perceived financial deprivation and steep discounting in intertemporal choice (H1) but, more crucially, represent the first evidence that episodic future thinking can moderate such relationship (H2). Indeed, among participants, those belonging to the financial deprivation condition benefitted the most - showed a greater reduction in delay discounting - from engagement in EFT, with respect to those in the financial satisfaction condition. We also examined several plausible mechanisms to investigate what may be the exact process underlying the found interaction effect but, unfortunately, none of the psychological variables tested was found to be statistically significant by means of moderated mediation.

Our study has a number of theoretical and practical implications. First of all, prior research has widely acknowledged the association of temporal discounting with consumers’ perceived economic status and our experiment replicates previous findings providing additional evidence of the causal relationship between the two. The exact reasons underpinning such phenomenon still fuel an ongoing debate among economists, psychologists, and sociologists whereas, instead, the investigation of interventions and methods that could possibly offset the effects of perceived financial constraints on delay discounting remains an understudied topic. Thus, by demonstrating the moderating effect of episodic future thinking (EFT) on the relationship between income and future discounting, our study crucially addresses this gap in the literature. Specifically, financially deprived consumers engaging in EFT prior to intertemporal choice do not display the usual significantly steeper rate of delay discounting compared with financially satisfied consumers. In this connection, our work also contributes to the rapidly growing research on episodic future thinking, and in particular on the identifications of the range of functions that this may serve. As previously outlined in the theoretical framework chapter, in the last decade, a number of studies on intertemporal choice have clearly revealed the impact of EFT on decision making and our work contributes to the growing evidence that engagement in EFT can effectively promote more far-sighted decision making in a diverse range of populations, including that of financially deprived individuals.

(26)

26 with a deeper understanding of observed consumers’ behaviour. If brands were to capitalize on this knowledge, marketing strategies could be designed in a manner that elicits feelings of financial deprivation by means of upward social comparison prior to purchase decisions. Supposedly, such tactics would induce consumers to favour smaller immediate rewards over larger future rewards and thus, lead them to end up making short-term, impulse buying choices. While the morality of said practices is clearly debatable, novel and meaningful public policy implications stem from the found moderating effect of episodic future thinking. As highlighted at the beginning of this work, millions of people all over the world live in conditions of absolute or relative poverty, and reportedly share a common tendency towards myopic decision making that, as already stated, traps them in a vicious cycle and prevents them from improving their economic conditions. Based on the results obtained in our study, engagement in episodic future thinking could assist these individuals in reducing their impatience and engage in more far-sighted decisions, so to finally escape the “poverty trap”. Obviously, poverty alleviation is a long and complex process requiring a multiplicity of interventions and measures. However, by proving the effectiveness of EFT in addressing one outcome (and cause) - present bias - of disadvantaged economic conditions, our research puts forward a viable, scalable and relatively low-cost intervention to assist, at least in part, in resolving this overarching issue. Clearly, further understanding of certain undetermined aspects of episodic future thinking will be necessary before its translation into an effective intervention tool in the context of poverty alleviation. In particular, future research should address critical questions concerning the duration and persistence of EFT’s effect, as well as the specific conditions under which its cues result to be more effective.

6. Limitations

(27)

(28)

28

7. References

Atance, C. M., & O'Neill, D. K. (2001). Episodic future thinking. Trends in cognitive sciences, 5(12), 533-539. Atance, C. M., & O’Neill, D. K. (2005). The emergence of episodic future thinking in humans. Learning and

Motivation, 36(2), 126-144.

Benoit, R. G., Gilbert, S. J., & Burgess, P. W. (2011). A neural mechanism mediating the impact of episodic prospection on farsighted decisions. Journal of Neuroscience, 31(18), 6771-6779.

Bickel, W. K., Wilson, A. G., Chen, C., Koffarnus, M. N., & Franck, C. T. (2016). Stuck in time: negative income shock constricts the temporal window of valuation spanning the future and the past. PloS one, 11(9), e0163051.

Briers, B., & Laporte, S. (2013). A wallet full of calories: The effect of financial dissatisfaction on the desire for food energy. Journal of Marketing Research, 50(6), 767-781.

Brown, J. R., Ivković, Z., & Weisbenner, S. (2015). Empirical determinants of intertemporal choice. Journal of Financial Economics, 116(3), 473-486.

Buhrmester, M., Kwang, T., & Gosling, S. D. (2011). Amazon's Mechanical Turk: A new source of inexpensive, yet high-quality, data?. Perspectives on psychological science, 6(1), 3-5.

Bulley, A., Henry, J., & Suddendorf, T. (2016). Prospection and the present moment: The role of episodic foresight in intertemporal choices between immediate and delayed rewards. Review of General Psychology, 20(1), 29.

Cheng, Y. Y., Shein, P. P., & Chiou, W. B. (2012). Escaping the impulse to immediate gratification: The prospect concept promotes a future‐oriented mindset, prompting an inclination towards delayed gratification. British Journal of Psychology, 103(1), 129-141.

Daniel, T. O., Said, M., Stanton, C. M., & Epstein, L. H. (2015). Episodic future thinking reduces delay discounting and energy intake in children. Eating behaviors, 18, 20-24.

Daniel, T. O., Stanton, C. M., & Epstein, L. H. (2013a). The future is now: reducing impulsivity and energy intake using episodic future thinking. Psychological science, 24(11), 2339-2342.

Daniel, T. O., Stanton, C. M., & Epstein, L. H. (2013b). The future is now: comparing the effect of episodic future thinking on impulsivity in lean and obese individuals. Appetite, 71, 120-125.

Ebert, J. E., & Prelec, D. (2007). The fragility of time: Time-insensitivity and valuation of the near and far future. Management science, 53(9), 1423-1438.

Ersner-Hershfield, H., Garton, M. T., Ballard, K., Samanez-Larkin, G. R., & Knutson, B. (2009). Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow: Individual differences in future self-continuity account for saving. Judgment and Decision Making, 4(4), 280.

Farah, M. J., & Hook, C. J. (2017). Trust and the poverty trap. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(21), 5327-5329.

Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Buchner, A., & Lang, A. G. (2009). Statistical power analyses using G* Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analyses. Behavior research methods, 41(4), 1149-1160.

Green, L., & Myerson, J. (2004). A discounting framework for choice with delayed and probabilistic rewards. Psychological bulletin, 130(5), 769.

(29)

29 Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: A

Regression-Based Approach. New York, NY: The Guilford Press

Haushofer, J., & Fehr, E. (2014). On the psychology of poverty. Science, 344(6186), 862-867.

Haushofer, J., Schunk, D., & Fehr, E. (2013). Negative income shocks increase discount rates. Zurich: University of Zurich Working Paper.

Hershfield, H. E. (2011). Future self‐continuity: how conceptions of the future self transform intertemporal choice. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1235(1), 30-43.

International Labour Office (ILO). (2016). World Employment and Social Outlook: Transforming jobs to end poverty, Geneva (January 19).

Jachimowicz, J. M., Chafik, S., Munrat, S., Prabhu, J. C., & Weber, E. U. (2017). Community trust reduces myopic decisions of low-income individuals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201617395.

Lachman, M. E., & Weaver, S. L. (1998). The sense of control as a moderator of social class differences in health and well-being. Journal of personality and social psychology, 74(3), 763.

Lawrance, E. C. (1991). Poverty and the rate of time preference: evidence from panel data. Journal of Political economy, 99(1), 54-77.

Lin, H., & Epstein, L. H. (2014). Living in the moment: effects of time perspective and emotional valence of episodic thinking on delay discounting. Behavioral neuroscience, 128(1), 12.

Liu, L., Feng, T., Chen, J., & Li, H. (2013). The value of emotion: how does episodic prospection modulate delay discounting?. PloS one, 8(11), e81717.

Liu, L., Feng, T., Suo, T., Lee, K., & Li, H. (2012). Adapting to the destitute situations: Poverty cues lead to short-term choice. PloS one, 7(4), e33950.

Mani, A., Mullainathan, S., Shafir, E., & Zhao, J. (2013). Poverty impedes cognitive function. Science, 341(6149), 976-980.

May, F. (2017). The Effect of Future Event Markers on Intertemporal Choice Is Moderated by the Reliance on Emotions versus Reason to Make Decisions. Journal of Consumer Research, ucw081.

Myerson, J., Green, L., & Warusawitharana, M. (2001). Area under the curve as a measure of discounting. Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 76(2), 235-243.

O'Neill, J., Daniel, T. O., & Epstein, L. H. (2016). Episodic future thinking reduces eating in a food court. Eating behaviors, 20, 9-13.

Oppenheimer, D. M., Meyvis, T., & Davidenko, N. (2009). Instructional manipulation checks: Detecting satisficing to increase statistical power. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(4), 867-872. Pender, J. L. (1996). Discount rates and credit markets: Theory and evidence from rural India. Journal of

development Economics, 50(2), 257-296.

Peters, J., & Büchel, C. (2010). Episodic future thinking reduces reward delay discounting through an enhancement of prefrontal-mediotemporal interactions. Neuron, 66(1), 138-148.

Read, D., Frederick, S., Orsel, B., & Rahman, J. (2005). Four score and seven years from now: The date/delay effect in temporal discounting. Management Science, 51(9), 1326-1335.

(30)

30 Schacter, D. L., Addis, D. R., & Buckner, R. L. (2007). Remembering the past to imagine the future: the

prospective brain. Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 8(9), 657.

Schacter, D. L., Benoit, R. G., & Szpunar, K. K. (2017). Episodic future thinking: mechanisms and functions. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 17, 41-50.

Schwarz, N. (1999). Self-reports: How the questions shape the answers. American psychologist, 54(2), 93. Shah, A. K., Mullainathan, S., & Shafir, E. (2012). Some consequences of having too little. Science, 338(6107),

682-685.

Snider, S. E., LaConte, S. M., & Bickel, W. K. (2016). Episodic future thinking: Expansion of the temporal window in individuals with alcohol dependence. Alcoholism: clinical and experimental research, 40(7), 1558- 1566.

Stein, J. S., Wilson, A. G., Koffarnus, M. N., Daniel, T. O., Epstein, L. H., & Bickel, W. K. (2016). Unstuck in time: episodic future thinking reduces delay discounting and cigarette smoking. Psychopharmacology, 233(21-22), 3771-3778.

Van den Bergh, B., Dewitte, S., & Warlop, L. (2008). Bikinis instigate generalized impatience in intertemporal choice. Journal of Consumer Research, 35(1), 85-97.

Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. Journal of personality and social psychology, 54(6), 1063.

World Bank. 2016. Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2016: Taking on Inequality. Washington, DC: World Bank. doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-0958-3. License: Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0 IGO

Yesuf, M., & Bluffstone, R. (2008). Wealth and time preference in rural Ethiopia (No. dp-08-16-efd).

(31)

31

8. Appendix

Appendix A – Financial constraints manipulation instructions

Participants in the financial satisfaction condition were presented with the following text:

“Based on the income you indicated, our online calculator identified you as an individual who has adequate and sufficient amount of financial resources (i.e. money), relative to others. We would like you to take a few minutes to reflect on how it feels to be financially adequate and to know that you have sufficient money to use at your will or when required in daily life, relative to other people who do not. Consider carefully and vividly how your life is with sufficient amount of money and what the consequences of having sufficient money to live a good and adequate life are.

Please take a few minutes to write your reflections and feelings in the space provided below and as detailed as possible.”

Participants in the financial deprivation condition were presented with the following text:

“Based on the income you indicated, our online calculator identified you as an individual who is financially constrained and lacks adequate financial resources (i.e. money). Please consider factors that limit your financial resources in daily life (e.g. mortgage or rent, expenses, lack of income, etc). We would like you to take a few minutes to reflect on how it feels to be financially inadequate and to know that you do not have sufficient money to use at your will or when required in daily life, relative to those who have more than sufficient disposable income and financial resources. Consider carefully and vividly how your life is without sufficient amount of money and what the consequences of not having enough money to live a good life are. Please take a few minutes to write your reflections and feelings about your lack of financial resources (i.e. money) in the space provided below and as detailed as possible.”

Appendix B – EFT task instructions

EFT task instructions (six months):

“Now, please think about a positive event in six months from now that you are looking forward to. Please imagine that event vividly: What is the event about and where will it happen? What will you be doing? Who will you be with? How will you be feeling? etc.

(32)

32 EFT task instructions (nine months):

“Now, please think about a positive event in nine months from now that you are looking forward to. Please imagine that event vividly: What is the event about and where will it happen? What will you be doing? Who will you be with? How will you be feeling? etc.

Using the space below, please write a few lines about this event and things that will happen and you will be doing there. Please write vividly and as much detailed as possible.”

Appendix C – Future-self connection visual scale

Appendix D – Sense of control scale

Personal mastery items:

- I can do just about anything I really set my mind to.

- When I really want to do something, I usually find a way to succeed at it.

- Whether or not I am able to get what I want is in my own hands.

- What happens to me in the future mostly depends on me.

Perceived constraints items:

- There is little I can do to change many of the important things in my life.

- Other people determine most of what I can and cannot do.

- I often feel helpless in dealing with the problems of life.

(33)

33 - There are many things that interfere with what I want to do.

- I have little control over the things that happen to me.

- There is really no way I can solve all the problems I have.

- I sometimes feel I am being pushed around in my life.

Appendix E – Results of between-subjects ANOVA

Tests of Between-Subjects Effects

Dependent Variable: AUC

Source Type III Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Partial Eta Squared Noncent. Parameter Observed Powerb Corrected Model 1,322a ₃ _,441 _{9,745 ,000} _,042 _29,236 _,998 Intercept 251,573 1 251,573 5561,598 ,000 ,893 5561,598 1,000 Financial_Constraints_Coded ,666 1 ,666 14,726 ,000 ,022 14,726 ,969 EFT_Condition_Coded ,265 1 ,265 5,853 ,016 ,009 5,853 ,676 Financial_Constraints_Coded * EFT_Condition_Coded ,332 1 ,332 7,344 ,007 ,011 7,344 ,772 Error 30,262 669 ,045 Total 286,170 673 Corrected Total 31,584 672

(34)

(35)

(36)

(37)

(38)

(39)

(40)

(41)

Investigating the effectiveness of episodic future thinking in reducing delay discounting rates of financially deprived consumers.

Investigating the effectiveness of episodic future thinking in reducing

delay discounting rates of financially deprived consumers.

Investigating the effectiveness of episodic future thinking in reducing

delay discounting rates of financially deprived consumers.

Abstract

Table of contents

List of figures

1. Introduction

2. Theoretical Framework

3. Methodology

4. Results

5. Conclusion

6. Limitations

7. References

8. Appendix