Delay discounting in aging: The influence of cognitive and psychological variables.

Abstract

Delay discounting (or temporal discounting) refers to the decrease of the subjective value of a reward as the time interval for receiving that reward increases. A recent meta-analysis showed that delay discounting appears to be similar across the lifespan as younger, middle-aged, and older adults prefer sooner rewards, despite smaller, over later rewards, even if larger. However further investigation is needed to understand the potential role of individual factors in delay discounting across the lifespan. The present study aimed to contribute to this debate, by investigating the influence of sociodemographic, neurocognitive, and psychological variables on delay discounting. For this purpose, 88 participants (30 younger, 30 middle-aged, and 28 older adults) aged between 19 and 73 years old completed the Monetary Choice Questionnaire (MCQ), a comprehensive battery of neurocognitive tests, and self-report measures of psychopathology. Results revealed no group differences in the rate of discounting. A well-established effect of the amount of the delayed reward was replicated, showing that medium rewards were less discounted than smaller rewards, and larger rewards had lower discounting rates than smaller and medium rewards-the magnitude effect. Regarding the influence of neurocognitive and psychological factors on delay discounting, better working memory, as assessed by the Corsi block-tapping task, significantly predicted larger magnitude effects. The findings of the current work are consistent with the results of previous studies, suggesting that temporal discounting is a stable function across the adult life span. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).