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Abstract
The following paper addresses a growing topic of interest, referring to ‘episodic future thinking’ (EFT) and it’s positive effects on delay discounting (DD). Thereby, this research paper attempts to increase the understanding of why some individuals behave in a more patient manner than others, when thinking of an event in the future. Additionally to investigate the main relationship of EFT in DD, this research paper addresses the role of subjective time perception by including it as a mediator. Subjective time perception means that an individuals’ temporal window expands whereby individuals perceive their time closer and value later rewards more patiently. Moreover, three different moderators were addressed in this study to provide additional insights into factors that influence the main relationship. The moderating effect of one’s childhood and current socioeconomic status (SES) is analysed and it is theorized that different social standings may weaken/strengthen the positive effects of EFT on DD. Furthermore, a connectedness to oneself in the future called future self-continuity is considered as a further moderator, whereby it is theorized that different levels of connectedness may also weaken/strengthen the positive effects of EFT on DD. Using quantitative research methods, the main effect of EFT on DD is analysed with multisource collected data of 347 participants. Firstly, by replicating existing studies, there is a significant effect of EFT on DD. Furthermore, the results show that the effect of EFT on DD does not depend on subjective time perception, but it has a moderating effect. Furthermore, the hypotheses that one’s childhood and the current SES as well as future self-continuity have a moderating effect were not supported.
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Preface
With this thesis I will finalize my Master in Marketing Management. Studying and living abroad in The Netherlands for one year was fun, exiting but also time-consuming. Nevertheless, I am looking back at an inspiring time, where I learned a lot and met great people.
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1. Introduction
Imagine it is summer. You are sitting on a bench, looking at the sea and enjoying a cold drink and the sun. The air has a salty flavour and a scent of the sea. You are looking to the right and see your friend sitting next to you and you just realize how nice this day at the beach is. No everyday concerns, no calls, no work to do. Just imagine. While the above lines might be the mere narrations of a TV advertising or simply a pleasant fantasy, the benefits of mentally simulating pleasant future events go beyond merely moments of distractions from our daily pressing tasks and responsibilities. One important benefit of vividly simulating pleasant future events, also known as episodic future thinking (EFT), is that it significantly reduces impatience in intertemporal choices (Peters & Büchel, 2010; Benoit, Gilbert & Burgees, 2011; Smallwood, Ruby & Singer, 2012). Intertemporal choices are the choice structures in which one should choose between two options: an immediate but smaller reward, or a later but larger reward. While it is economically rational to be “patient” and choose the larger but later reward, people usually show tendencies for smaller-sooner rewards, an indication of being “impatient”. Intertemporal choices are critical because they explain how good people are in exercising self-control and overriding their immediate impulses (Bickel & Marsch, 2001; Frederick, Loewenstein & O’Donoghue, 2002; Green & Myerson, 2004). Choosing healthy, low-calorie food that benefit us in the long-run, instead of opting for tempting, high-calorie food that immediately gratify our desire, or investing in portfolios that return higher but later profits, are examples of intertemporal choices (Appelhans et al., 2016; Shah, Mullainathan & Shafir, 2012; Vohs, 2013).While the cumulative evidence suggests that episodic future thinking is a powerful intervention to decrease people’s impatience in intertemporal choices, questions remain as to what the underlying mechanism and potential boundary conditions are to this effect. This research aims to address these critical gaps in the literature. More specifically, regarding the mechanism underlying this effect, it was investigated if subjective perception of time mediates the relation between episodic future thinking and impatience in intertemporal decisions. Moreover, to examine the boundaries of this effect, the role of people’s 1) current and 2) childhood socioeconomic status, as well as 3) dispositional future self-continuity was explored.
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experiment are explained, which were conducted to test the proposed hypotheses. Finally, the implications of this research as well as limitations and future research possibilities are discussed.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Delay Discounting
It is easy to choose between two immediate or between two equally delayed options when one of them has a larger payoff. However, the choice becomes difficult when one option has immediate but smaller payoffs (e.g. 10 € now) and the other one has larger but delayed payoffs (e.g. 90 € in 1 month). Choosing options with smaller-sooner payoffs over larger-later payoffs is an indication of impulsive and short-sighted behaviour (Bickel et al., 2016; Haushofer & Fehr, 2014). When the delay until a payoff increases, the valuation of the future payoff decreases. This phenomenon is known as delay discounting (DD) and varies in its degrees depending on people’s personality or across contexts (Ballard & Knutson, 2009; Elster, 1979 cited in Bartels & Urminsky, 2011).
Increased preference for smaller-sooner payoffs in intertemporal choices reliably predicts adverse tendencies such as lower academic performance (Kirby, Winston & Santiesteban, 2005), less saving (Sutter et al., 2013), obesity (Courtemanche, Heutel & Mc Alvanah, 2014), smoking (Ohmura, Takahashi & Kitamura, 2016), alcohol consumption (Petry, 2001), substance use (Petry & Casarella, 1999), and gambling (Green & Myerson, 2004). The literature on DD has identified various personality traits and situational factors that influence people’s tendency to show impatience in intertemporal choices. Particularly, episodic future thinking has been recognized as one of the successful interventions to decrease people’s impatience in intertemporal choices.
2.2 Episodic Future Thinking
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One explanation could be that EFT is mediated by subjective time perception, meaning that the temporal window is widened, whereas individuals value later rewards more distant in time (D’Argembeau et al., 2010; Snider, LaConte & Bickel, 2016).
Furthermore, it is known that individuals rated emotional valence differently regarding their phenomenal characteristics (i.e. contextual, sensorial, and emotional details). Participants associated positive vs. negative events with a greater feeling of re and pre-experiencing and positive thoughts were more frequent, more specific and associated with more visual images than negative thoughts (D’Argembeau & van der Linden, 2004; D’Argembeau, Renaud & van der Linden, 2011). Liu et al. (2013) provide evidence that participants were inclined to choose the delayed but larger reward when imagining positive events vs. no imagination and choose the immediate but smaller reward when imagining negative events vs. no imagination, whereas neutral imagination did not affect individuals’ choice preference. Participants rated positive events in the future and present as more positive than neutral events, and thus the emotional valence could dynamically modulate intertemporal choices (Lin & Epstein, 2014). Grysman et al. (2013) suggest, that in general future events were rated more positive than past events.
These findings propose that delay discounting is affected by positive EFT in comparison to negative EFT, as individuals are faster in generating positive than negative events (Newby-Clark & Ross, 2003), and due to the affect-as-information hypothesis, “emotion provide compelling information about the personal value of whatever is in mind at the time. In the case of judgment, value might be assigned to the object of judgment”, meaning that positive affects signals that the object of judgment is valuable, and this leads to a positive evaluation and vice versa (Clore & Huntsinger, 2007). In a figurative sense, positive, negative or neutral emotions influence the content of thoughts; emotions serve as information about the value of whatever comes to mind (Liu et al., 2013). Resulting from the above-mentioned connection between EFT and DD and past findings it is hypothesized that: H1: Replicating previous findings, thinking of a positive event in the future has a positive effect on delay discounting in comparison to thinking of a positive event in the present and no future thinking. Furthermore, as EFT is thought to open a future window, whereas the future assumes to be more accessible and shortens one’s perception of future time (i.e. decreases subjective distance from future episodes) (Zauberman & Kim, 2008) it is hypothesized that:
4 H2: The subjective perception of time should mediate the link between EFT and delay discounting. Beside the hypothesized effect of EFT on DD, there are variables that may influence the relationship between EFT and DD.
2.3 Life-History Theory, Childhood SES and Delay Discounting
According to the life-history theory, all organisms need to decide how to allocate limited resources to “fitness-enhancing investments”. Life-history theory helps in understanding why, how and when individuals make certain trade-offs regarding economic investments, their behaviour, health, education and diet (Griskevicius et al., 2011).
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2.4 Current SES and Delay Discounting
But not only the individuals’ background influences intertemporal decisions. Farah & Hook (2017) showed that the current SES can also predict discounting, such that people with lower income are more likely to show impatience in intertemporal choices (Vohs, 2013). When having little money, cognitive bandwidth can be reduced (Mani et al., 2013; Spears, 2011) resulting in a poor ability to make good economically decisions (Shah, Mullainathan & Shafir, 2012) and an increase in discount rates (Haushofer & Fehr, 2014). One explanation could be, that individuals with a lower current SES waste their cognitive load on thinking about their poor financial decision (Mani et al., 2013; Vohs, 2013), and this affects their decision-making. However, when feeling poor, individuals behave in a way, that enhances their financial dissatisfaction (e.g. often playing lotteries, saving too little and borrowing too much). If individuals are falling into poverty, this leads to an increase in discount rates (Haushofer & Fehr, 2014) and affects their economic decisions (Spears, 2011).
Previous findings (Bertrand, Mullainathan & Shafir, 2004; Duflo, 2006; Hall, 2008) support this assumption and suggest that there is an interaction between feeling poor and “behavioural” decision-making. Interestingly, this effect was greatest for those with the least working memory (Spears, 2011). It is assumed that feeling poor affects how individuals process information (Haushofer & Fehr, 2014), as poverty-related concerns are using up mental resources and there is less capacity for other “projects”. This imbalance and limited mental bandwidth implies higher discounting, as people with a low current SES are not able to appropriately plan for their futures and make the smartest decisions (Mani et al., 2013; Shah, Mullainathan & Shafir, 2012), whereas Carvalho, Meier & Wang (2016) argue that financial strain does not necessarily disrupt cognitive function and further on worsens the quality of decision-making. Notwithstanding, numerous studies have shown an effect of poverty on decision-making. Therefore, it is hypothesized that there will occur an interaction effect:
H4: Current SES has a moderating effect on the relationship between episodic future thinking and delay discounting. The effects of episodic future thinking on reducing impatience is greater (lesser) for individuals with a relatively low (high) income.
2.5 Future Self-Continuity and Delay Discounting
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selves. Bartels & Urminsky (2011) make continuous use of this idea and point out that the greater the perceived connectedness to the future self is (sharing crucial psychological properties i.e. beliefs, future goals and values) the better individual’s willingness to take the later reward instead of the immediate. When someone feels disconnected to their future self, this will undermine the underlying motivation maintaining resources for the future self, resulting in impatience. In this context, if there is a disconnection, individuals may fail to save for their future (Hershfield, Wimmer & Knutson, 2008), as they do not perceive a high future self-continuity, meaning they do not feel that their future self is at core the same individual as their present self (Bartels & Urminsky, 2011; Hershfield, 2011 cited in Schanbacher, Faro & Botti, 2016). As Butler in 1936 pointed out: “...if the self or person of today, and that of tomorrow, are not the same, but only [similar] persons, the person of today is really no more interested in what will befall the person of tomorrow, than in what will befall any other person” (p. 102). Given the important role future self-continuity has, it is hypothesized that there will occur an interaction effect:
H5: Future self-continuity has a moderating effect on the relationship between episodic future thinking and delay discounting. Episodic future thinking has a greater (lesser) impact in reducing impatience among individuals with lower (higher) future self-continuity.
2.6 Conceptual Model
7 Figure 1: Conceptual Model
3. Methodology
The previous chapter reviewed the relevant literature, followed by the conceptual model which summarizes the hypothesises. Chapter 3 describes the methodology of the research by specifying the design and procedure of the experiment, and the process of acquisition of participants.
3.1 Participants and Design
Through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, 292 US-resident females and males were recruited to participate in the online experiment in exchange for $0.70. And additional 63 EU-resident females and males were recruited through an online survey, distributed via e-mail and social media but without monetary exchange. Everyone participated voluntarily and was excluded if he/she did not complete the survey, stated that they did not understand the writing or monetary part correctly, showed abnormal discounting behaviour or did not think of a positive event in the proposed timeframe. In sum, 8 participants were excluded before the analysis, n= 347, female= 198 (57.1%), men= 149 (42.9%), with an average age of 35 (MAge = 35.4, SD= 12.668) , RangeAge = 16 _ 77.
3.2 Procedure
8 feeling?”), and write down a few lines about the event. Subsequently they indicated how far or near they perceived three months from now (i.e. subjective perception of future time) and completed the delay discounting task for three months, while being cued with their autobiographical writing about their personal and positive event in three months. Next, participants went through the same steps (writing about future event, indicating their perception of time, and discounting), this time for a future episode in 6 months.
To manipulate EPT, following established procedures in the literature, participants went through similar steps as in the EFT condition, except that they were asked to generate episodic personal thoughts for 3 or 6 days in future (instead of months). Similar to EFT, these episodic thoughts were followed by discounting for 3 to 6 months period and subjective perception of future times. Finally, the control condition (no future thinking) was also included to isolate the effects of any episodic thinking (Sze et al., 2017).
The procedure of this condition is similar to the two other conditions with the following exceptions, firstly participants were instructed to write about 2 facts they know of. Subsequently they indicated how far or near they perceive three months and completed the delay discounting task for three months, while being cued with their writing about 2 facts they are aware of. In the second phase, participants indicated how far or near they perceive six months and completed the delay discounting task for six months, while being cued with their writing about 2 facts they are aware of. In order to analyse how participants rated subjective perception of time, existing methods (Zauberman & Kim, 2008) were used by asking how far or close participants perceived 3 and 6 months from now, using a slider bar, anchored from “very close” to “very far”.
3.3 Dependent Variable: Delay Discounting Task
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3.4 Moderators
3.4.1 Childhood SES and Current SES To assess the first and second moderator, perceived childhood and current SES, established measures were used (Griskevicius et al., 2011). Therefore, participants had to indicate their agreement on a 9-point scale from 1 “strongly disagree” to 9 “strongly agree” for three statements “My family usually had enough money for things when I was growing up.”, “I grew up in a relatively wealthy neighbourhood.” and “I felt relatively wealthy compared to the other kids in my school.” (α = 0.831, N = 3). The average score was calculated as a measurement for each participants’ childhood SES (cf. appendix 1).In order to measure the current SES, participants were asked to reply to three other statements “I have enough money to buy things I want.”, “I don’t need to worry too much about paying my bills.”, “I don’t think I’ll have to worry about money too much in the future.”(α = 0.876, N = 3) (cf. appendix 1). The average score was calculated as a measurement for each participants’ current SES. Additionally, and as part of general demographics, participants were asked for their current income.
3.4.2 Future Self-Continuity
10 1988). The schedule consisted of 10 positive emotions (α = 0.900) and 14 negative emotions (α = 0.864) (cf. appendix 2). For each item, participants had to indicate on a 5-point Likert scale to what extent she/he experiences these emotions at that present moment (Totally disagree to totally agree). The average scores of the positive and negative items were calculated as measurements of the participants’ positive and negative mood status. Participants also indicated their age, gender and further demographics.
3.7 Analysis Plan
In order to analyse the data appropriately, MS Office EXCEL was used in order to clean the data and calculate measurement averages. Secondly, data was imported to IBN SPSS Statistics for quantitative analysis. Results were analysed by Univariate ANOVA analysis. To establish mediation and moderation analysis, PROCESS model 1 and 4 by Hayes (2012) was used.
4. Results
In this chapter the results of the analyses are elaborated. Therefore, first a One-Way ANOVA was conducted, in order to find out about the main effect. Further analysis was run to identify interaction effects. Finally, an overview of the hypotheses is given.
4.1 Main Effect
4.1.1 H1: Effect of EFT on DD
11 0,52 0,54 0,56 0,58 0,6 0,62 0,64 0,66 0,68 0,7 NFT EFT EPT Del ay Di sco un Yn g CondiYon
Figure 3: Main Effect EFT
4.2 Mediating and Moderating Effects
4.2.1 H2: Mediating Effect of Subjective Time Perception
Using Andrew Hayes Process Model 4, mediating role of subjective time perception was tested. There was an insignificant indirect effect of EFT on DD through subjective time perception b= 0.0012, BCa CI [-0.0057, 0.0095]. The hypothesis, that the effect of EFT on DD can be explained by subjective time perception, was not supported (cf. appendix 4).
4.2.2 H2: Moderating Effect of Subjective Time Perception
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With subjective time perception as a moderator, the following conceptual model is determined: Figure 5: Revised Conceptual Model 4.2.3 H3: Moderating Effect of Childhood SES
Similar to methods used before, a moderation analysis was conducted by using Andrew Hayes process model 1 to see the moderating effect of childhood SES. The overall model was not significant (F(3, 208)= 1.7327, p= 0.1571, R2= 0.0247). Interaction effect was not significant (b=
13 0.0002, t(208)= -0.0173, p= 0.9862). The hypothesis, that childhood SES has a moderating effect was not supported. (cf. appendix 6). 4.2.4 H4: Moderating Effect of Current SES and Income
Again, a moderation analysis was conducted by using Andrew Hayes process model 1 to observe the moderating effect current SES and income have. The overall model was not significant (F(3, 208)= 1.9809, p= 0.1179, R2= 0.0278). Interaction effect was not significant (b= -0.0016, t(208), p= 0.8874). The hypothesis that current SES has a moderating effect was not supported. The moderating effect of current income yield a significant overall model (F(3, 208)= 2.9228, p= 0.0350, R2 = 0.405). Interaction effect was not significant (b= 0.0054, t(208)= 0.9001, p= 0.3691) (cf. appendix 7). 4.2.5 H5: Moderating Effect of Future Self-Continuity
To test the moderating effect future self-continuity has, a moderation analysis was conducted by using Andrew Hayes process model 1. The overall model was not significant (F(3, 208)= 1.9709, p= 0.1194). Interaction effect was not significant (b= -0.0135, t(208)= -0.7156, p= 0.4751). The hypothesis, that future self-continuity has a moderating effect was not supported. (cf. appendix 8).
Correlation test between future self-continuity and subjective perception of time: A Pearson future self-continuity and subjective time perception correlation was computed to assess the relationship between feeling connected/disconnected to the future self and how close/far the subjective time is perceived. There was a positive correlation between the two variables (r= -0.136, n= 347, p= 0.011). A high connectedness is correlated with a close perception of time and a low connectedness is correlated with a far perception of time (cf. appendix 9).
4.3 Overview of Hypotheses
H1 EFT has a significant effect on DD Supported
14 Figure 6: Overview Hypotheses
5. Discussion and Implications
This study responds to recent calls for research into understanding further variables that may explain the effects of episodic future thinking on delay discounting and variables that may influence this relationship in certain directions. Research on EFT has drawn upon a wide range of theories and previous research has already generated crucial insights into EFT and DD, until now they have remained rather silent about the variables covered in this research. The primary goal of this research was to confirm the effect of EFT on DD as well as examine what mediates and moderates this relationship. In this chapter the findings of the conducted analysis are discussed, in comparison to existing literature, moreover, new findings are addressed.5.1 Discussion of the Variables
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over EPT on DD becomes less significant (b= 0.2140, t(208)= 3.0766, p= 0.0024). This interaction deserves further research.
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0.0554, t(208)= 1.9714, p= 0.05) to moderate (b= 0.0955. t(208)= 1.9714, p=0.05) the effects of EFT are significant and helped those participants in decreasing their discount rate. The effects of EFT became insignificant if participants rated their income as being moderate to high, as initially it is assumed that those people have a low discount rate anyway.
Furthermore, this research paper was not able to show a moderating effect of future self-continuity on EFT and DD. Considering the same reasons as mentioned above, if participants did not feel connected to their future self, the effects of EFT were not strong enough and those participants discount rate did not decrease (b= 0.1125, t(208)= 1.4896, p= 0.1378). If not feeling connected to oneself in 10 years, why save for oneself in 10 years? When participants rated their future self-continuity from low (b= 0.0865, t(208)= 1.9714, p= 0.05) to moderate (b= 0.0569. t(208)= 1.9714, p=0.05) the effects of EFT are significant and helped those participants in decreasing their discount rate. The effects became insignificant if participants felt very connected to their future self, as they already showed the tendency of patience. Nevertheless, future self-continuity and subjective time perception are correlated. This means that if someone perceives the future as very close, they were also connected to their future self and vice versa.
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28 10) Correlation future self continuity and subjective time perception
Appendix B: Survey
EFT condition EFT 3 months: “Please think about a positive event in three months from now that you are looking forward to. Please imagine that event vividly: What will you be doing? What is the event about? Who will you be with? Where will you be going? 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 as much detailed and vividly as possible.” SubjTimePerc3months: “How long do you consider the duration between today and a day 3 months in the future?”Reminder: “The text below is your autobiographic writing about an event that you are looking forward to in three months. Please read it once again and then answer the following question:
Discounting 3 months Imagine that you can receive $65 Now. How much money do you require instead to wait for three months? Please indicate the amount in the box provided. $65 now = $____ in 3 months.”
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EFT 6 months: “Please think about a positive event in six months from now that you are looking forward to. Please imagine that event vividly: What will you be doing? What is the event about? Who will you be with? Where will you be going? 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 ill be doing there. Please write as much detailed and vividly as possible.”
SubjTimePerc6months: “How long do you consider the duration between today and a day 6 months in the future?”
Reminder: “The text below is your autobiographic writing about an event that you are looking forward to in six months. Please read it once again and then answer the following question Discounting 6 months: “Imagine that you can receive $65 Now. How much money do you require instead to wait for six months? Please indicate the amount in the box provided. $65 now = $____ in 6 months.” EPT condition EPT 3 days: “Please think about a positive event in three days from now that you are looking forward to. Please imagine that event vividly: What will you be doing? What is the event about? Who will you be with? Where will you be going? 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 as much detailed and vividly as possible.“ SubjTimePerc3months: How long do you consider the duration between today and a day 3 months in the future?”
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EPT_6daysEssay: “Please think about a positive event in six days from now that you are looking forward to. Please imagine that event vividly: What will you be doing? What is the event about? Who will you be with? Where will you be going? 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 as much detailed and vividly as possible.” Subjectivetime6Month: “How long do you consider the duration between today and a day 6 months in the future?”
31 Discounting 3 months: “Imagine that you can receive $65 Now. How much money do you require instead to wait for six months? Please indicate the amount in the box provided. $65 now = $____ in 6 months.”
Part 2: Demographics In this section, you will answer a few questions about your habits and demographic background. (general demographics like age, gender etc. are not listed)
CURRENT & FUTURE
33 ChildhoodSES1 My family usually had enough money for things when I was growing up. 1 (1) 2 (2) 3 (3) 4 (4) 5 (5) 6 (6) 7 (7) 8 (8) 9 (9) Strongly disagree:Strongly agree (1) m m m m m m m m m ChildhoodSES2 I grew up in a relatively wealthy neighborhood. 1 (1) 2 (2) 3 (3) 4 (4) 5 (5) 6 (6) 7 (7) 8 (8) 9 (9) Strongly disagree:Strongly agree (1) m m m m m m m m m ChildhoodSES3 I felt relatively wealthy compared to other kids at school. 1 (1) 2 (2) 3 (3) 4 (4) 5 (5) 6 (6) 7 (7) 8 (8) 9 (9) Strongly disagree:Strongly agree (1) m m m m m m m m m
