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Asymmetric Discounting In Intertemporal Choice: A Query Theory Account, E. U. Weber, E. J. Johnson, K. F. Milch, Hannah H. Chang, J. C. Brodscholl, D. G. Goldstein

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

People are impatient and discount future rewards more when they are asked to delay consumption than when they are offered the chance to accelerate consumption. The three experiments reported here provide a process-level account for this asymmetry, with implications for designing decision environments that promote less impulsivity. In Experiment 1, a thought-listing procedure showed that people decompose discount valuation into two queries. Whether one considers delayed or accelerated receipt of a gift certificate influences the order in which memory is queried to support immediate versus delayed consumption, and the order of queries affects the relative number of patient versus impatient …