ArticleThe journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences2020
Age Differences in Intertemporal Choice: The Role of Task Type, Outcome Characteristics, and Covariates.
Article in The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Temporal discounting across adulthood: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychology and aging · 2022Pooled it
- Modeling temporal self-continuity and its association with temporal discounting.Personality and individual differences · 2025Article
- Comparing intertemporal decision-making models: Predictions and applications in lifespan through subjective time perception.British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953) · 2025Article
- Age, income, and the discounting of delayed monetary losses.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2025Article
- The effect of time on delay discounting in younger and older adults.Australian journal of psychology · 2025Article
- Older adults are relatively more susceptible to impulsive social influence than young adults.Communications psychology · 2024Article
- Differences in the Temporal Extension of Self-Continuity Over the Course of the COVID-19 Pandemic.Self and identity : the journal of the International Society for Self and Identity · 2024Article
- Age Differences in Self-Continuity in Germany and the United States: The Role of Temporal Direction, Temporal Distance, and Demographics.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2023Article
- The Effect of Delay Duration on Delay Discounting Across Adulthood.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2022Article
- The improving sequence effect on monetary sequences.Heliyon · 2020Article
- The delay-reward heuristic: What do people expect in intertemporal choice tasks?Judgment and decision making · 2020Article
- A measure of inconsistencies in intertemporal choice.PloS one · 2019Article
- Information Avoidance in Consumer Choice: Do Avoidance Tendencies and Motives Vary by Age?Experimental aging researchArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesPrior research has revealed age differences in the preferred timing of monetary outcomes, but results are inconsistent across studies. The present study examined the role of task type, outcome characteristics, and a range of theoretically implicated covariates that may contribute to variations in age effects.
methodTwo types of intertemporal choice paradigms (temporal discounting and sequence construction) were administered to a diverse life-span sample (n = 287, aged 18-87). The design experimentally manipulated outcome delay (months vs years), amount (hundreds vs thousands), and valence (gain vs loss) while statistically controlling for a range of potential covariates including demographics, affect, personality, time perspective, subjective health, and numeracy.
resultsIn the temporal discounting task, no significant age differences were observed and this pattern did not differ by outcome delay, amount, or valence. In the sequence-construction task, age was associated with a preference for sequences of decreasing impact in the gain condition but not in the loss condition, whereas outcome delay and amount did not moderate age effects. Age patterns in discounting and sequences preferences remained unchanged after controlling for covariates. DISCUSSION: These findings converge with prior studies reporting weak or null effects of age in temporal discounting tasks and suggest that inconsistent results are not due to variations in outcome valence, delay, or amount across studies. Findings also add to the scarce evidence for age differences sequence-preferences. After discussing methodological limitations, we consider implications for future research and practice.
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