2017/03/22 by Ding, Tao, Bickel, Warren K., Pan, Shimei
#Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI) #Computers and Society (cs.CY) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Social and Information Networks (cs.SI)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1703.07726
In economics and psychology, delay discounting is often used to characterize how individuals choose between a smaller immediate reward and a larger delayed reward. People with higher delay discounting rate (DDR) often choose smaller but more immediate rewards (a "today person"). In contrast, people with a lower discounting rate often choose a larger future rewards (a "tomorrow person"). Since the ability to modulate the desire of immediate gratification for long term rewards plays an important role in our decision-making, the lower discounting rate often predicts better social, academic and health outcomes. In contrast, the higher discounting rate is often associated with problematic behaviors such as alcohol/drug abuse, pathological gambling and credit card default. Thus, research on understanding and moderating delay discounting has the potential to produce substantial societal benefits.