Intertemporal Decision-Making: Why Do We Always Choose "Now" Over "Later"? Psychologists Reveal How Emotions Manipulate Your Choices

The Dilemma of Intertemporal Decision-Making

In life, we often encounter choices that make us hesitate. For example, if you had two money-making opportunities—one gives you 500 yuan immediately, the other gives you 4,000 yuan after one month—which would you choose?

Situations where you decide between immediate small rewards and delayed large rewards are called intertemporal decision-making in psychology. Many people facing such choices tend to prefer getting money right away, even if they could get more later.

This phenomenon of preferring small immediate gains while undervaluing future rewards is called delay discounting, closely related to our impulsivity and impatience. Don't underestimate delay discounting—it's associated with many negative outcomes like substance abuse and obesity.

So if we can find ways to reduce delay discounting rates, it would be very helpful for making wiser, more far-sighted decisions!

The Magic of Emotional Motivation

To explore how to change this delay discounting phenomenon, researchers conducted an experiment. They recruited 73 college students and divided them into two groups, performing future scenario imagination tasks with approach motivation and avoidance motivation respectively.

**Approach Motivation**: Imagining happy or angry future events that make people want to approach a goal **Avoidance Motivation**: Imagining disgusting or depressive future events that make people want to avoid something

Results showed that approach motivation future scenario imagination reduces delay discounting rates, making people more willing to wait for larger future rewards. Avoidance motivation future scenario imagination increases delay discounting rates, making people prefer immediate small rewards.

Additionally, the study found that imagining pleasant events has a greater impact on intertemporal decision-making than imagining angry events, possibly due to differences in motivational intensity.

Experiment Details

The experiment recruited 73 college students who completed several important tasks. Participants were randomly divided into two groups:

**Approach Motivation Group**: Imagining happy scenarios like traveling with family, or imagining themselves excited after winning a competition **Avoidance Motivation Group**: Imagining going to a disgusting place or experiencing frustrating events

After imagining, participants rated the imagined events for expected emotional intensity, importance, arousal, vividness, and motivational intensity. Finally, participants completed a monetary delay discounting task.

In this task, they had to choose between "get some money today" and "get 5,000 yuan after some time." The "money today" amounts ranged from 500 to 4,500 yuan, while "after some time" periods ranged from 2 days to 2 years.

Researchers used an area under the curve (AUC) indicator to measure delay discounting rates. Smaller AUC means lower delay discounting rate—more impulsive preference for immediate small rewards. Larger AUC means higher delay discounting rate—more willingness to wait for larger future rewards.

Experimental Results

**Approach Motivation Group**: Participants' post-imagination AUC values were larger than pre-imagination values, indicating greater willingness to wait for delayed rewards. The effect was more pronounced when imagining pleasant events than angry events.

**Avoidance Motivation Group**: Participants' post-test AUC values were smaller than pre-test values, indicating stronger preference for immediate rewards.

Researchers also found that AUC changes correlated with participants' motivational intensity ratings for future events. Higher motivational intensity had greater impact on intertemporal decision-making.

Practical Decision-Making Guide

**When making intertemporal decisions**: Imagine more approach-motivated positive future events, like imagining rewards from studying hard and achieving good grades, to help make wiser choices.

**For impulsive decision-makers**: Regularly practice positive future scenario imagination to enhance self-control ability.

**In education and child development**: Guide children to engage in approach-motivated future scenario imagination to cultivate long-term planning skills.

Hope that by understanding this research, everyone can apply these techniques in various life choices to make wiser decisions and live better lives!