Opportunity costs of reward delays and the discounting of hypothetical money and cigarettes

摘要: Humans are reported to discount delayed rewards at lower rates than nonhumans. However, nonhumans studied in tasks that restrict reinforcement during delays, whereas humans typically do not delays. In nonhuman tasks, the opportunity cost of restricted delays may increase delay discounting rates. The present within-subjects study used online crowdsourcing (Amazon Mechanical Turk, or MTurk) assess hypothetical money (and cigarettes smokers) under four framing conditions differing availability At one extreme, participants were free leave their computer without returning, and engage any behavior reward (modeling typical human tasks). opposite required stay little other Discounting increased as an orderly function cost. Results also indicated predominantly hyperbolic discounting, “magnitude effect,” steeper money, positive correlations between these commodities. This is first test effects costs on suggests procedural differences partially account for observed species discounting.