ArticlePerspectives on behavior science2019
On the Complexity of Discounting, Choice Situations, and People.
Article in Perspectives on behavior science, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Whether temporal discounting is domain-specific between health outcomes and money: a systematic review and meta-analysis.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2025Pooled it
- Maximizing within-session stability in individual differences during an experiential impulsivity task.Learning & behavior · 2025Article
- Rate of cross-commodity discounting of substances varies by substance type for individuals in recovery from substance use disorders.Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Value-based decision-making predicts alcohol use and related problems in young men.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2023Observational
- Brain response in heavy drinkers during cross-commodity alcohol and money discounting with potentially real rewards: A preliminary study.Drug and alcohol dependence reports · 2023Article
- Hyperbolic modeling and assessment of hypothetical health behaviors during a viral outbreak using crowdsourced samples.Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior · 2023Article
- Valuation of future alcohol in cross-commodity delay discounting is associated with alcohol misuse/consequences.Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors · 2023Article
- Discounting of outcomes in which immediate gains are followed by delayed losses.Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior · 2023Article
- Gray matter volumes of the insula and anterior cingulate cortex and their dysfunctional roles in cigarette smoking.Addiction neuroscience · 2022Article
- Student Procrastination on an E-learning Platform: From Individual Discounting to Group Behavior.Perspectives on behavior science · 2021Article
- Tailored Cigarette Warning Messages: How Individualized Loss Aversion and Delay Discounting Rates Can Influence Perceived Message Effectiveness.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Rejecting impulsivity as a psychological construct: A theoretical, empirical, and sociocultural argument.Psychological review · 2021Article
- The Effects of Obligatory and Preferential Frames on Delay Discounting.The Analysis of verbal behavior · 2020Article
- Audaciously under the Dome: Behavior Science in Systems and Society.Perspectives on behavior science · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Although steep delay discounting is associated with various behavioral problems, perhaps most prominently substance abuse, we argue that it is best not conceived of as a character flaw such as impulsivity. Such a view, although part of a centuries-old tradition, does not distinguish between actions whose outcomes involve gains and losses, or between delayed outcomes and probabilistic outcomes, nor does it acknowledge that how steeply an individual discounts one of these kinds of outcome appears to be independent of how steeply they discount other kinds. Therefore, we advocate an approach that does not require making judgments about the character of the individuals involved. We show that when drug-dependent individuals are compared with controls, a substantial number of the drug-dependent individuals discount delayed monetary rewards less steeply than the average (median) member of the control group. Moreover, a substantial number of the controls discount more steeply than the average drug-dependent individual. Finally, we point out that many everyday choice situations differ from those studied in most discounting experiments in that they involve both gains and losses as well as qualitatively different outcomes that may be both delayed and probabilistic. Past research on discounting that focused on simple choice situations has provided a solid foundation, but research on more complicated situations is now needed. We believe that the principles revealed by such research will both inform the choices of treatment providers and improve our understanding of the complicated decisions that people face every day.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.