SynthesisJournal of the experimental analysis of behavior2020
Delay discounting of different outcomes: Review and theory.
Synthesis in Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 73 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
73 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A systematic review of delay discounting among workers: framing effects, resource availability, and health.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Pooled it
- Evaluating the quality of systematic reviews and meta-analyses published in behaviour analysis journals: An umbrella review.PloS one · 2026Pooled it
- Whether temporal discounting is domain-specific between health outcomes and money: a systematic review and meta-analysis.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2025Pooled it
- A systematic review and meta-analysis of test-retest reliability and stability of delay and probability discounting.Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior · 2024Pooled it
- Deprivation Has Inconsistent Effects on Delay Discounting: A Review.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- Sexual discounting: A systematic review of discounting processes and sexual behavior.Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology · 2021Pooled it
- Gender differences in the effects of emotion induction on intertemporal decision-making.PloS one · 2024Trial
- Discounting money and health effects from communicable and noncommunicable diseases in Thailand.Scientific reports · 2023Trial
- Less systematic decision-making during delay discounting, but not discounting rate, is robustly linked to psychopathology.Journal of psychopathology and clinical science · 2026Article
- Neural Markers of Reward Valuation and Impulsive Decision-Making in Mania Risk.JAMA psychiatry · 2026Article
- Divergent disinhibition profiles linked to externalizing psychopathology.Journal of psychopathology and clinical science · 2026Article
- Associations Between Steep Delay Discounting and Punishment Learning.Computational psychiatry (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2026Article
- Scoping review of episodic future thinking and delay discounting observed in Alzheimer's disease, depression, and PTSD.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Rate of cross-commodity discounting of substances varies by substance type for individuals in recovery from substance use disorders.Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Exploring risky decision-making dynamics during antidepressant treatment in major depressive disorder: a computational modeling approach.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Reward magnitude-specific delay discounting differentiates mania versus depression risk.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2025Article
- The effect of stress on delay discounting in female patients with early-onset bulimia nervosa and alcohol use disorder: functional magnetic resonance imaging study.BJPsych open · 2025Article
- Challenges to estimating and managing risks with hexavalent chromium exposure: a mixed-methods study of Swedish workplaces.Annals of work exposures and health · 2025Article
- Integrating maintaining theories for addiction and binge-eating pathology: A review of affective and reward-based theories.Clinical psychology review · 2025Review
- Dynamic Functional Connectivity Between Amygdala and Cognitive Control Network Predicts Delay Discounting in Older Adolescents.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
13 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Steep delay discounting is characterized by a preference for small immediate outcomes relative to larger delayed outcomes and is predictive of drug abuse, risky sexual behaviors, and other maladaptive behaviors. Nancy M. Petry was a pioneer in delay discounting research who demonstrated that people discount delayed monetary gains less steeply than they discount substances with abuse liability. Subsequent research found steep discounting for not only drugs, but other nonmonetary outcomes such as food, sex, and health. In this systematic review, we evaluate the hypotheses proposed to explain differences in discounting as a function of the type of outcome and explore the trait- and state-like nature of delay discounting. We found overwhelming evidence for the state-like quality of delay discounting: Consistent with Petry and others' work, nonmonetary outcomes are discounted more steeply than monetary outcomes. We propose two hypotheses that together may account for this effect: Decreasing Future Preference and Decreasing Future Worth. We also found clear evidence that delay discounting has trait-like qualities: People who steeply discount monetary outcomes steeply discount nonmonetary outcomes as well. The implication is that changing delay discounting for one outcome could change discounting for other outcomes.
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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.