Medial Prefrontal Cortex Predicts Intertemporal Choice

Jason P Mitchell,Daniel T Gilbert,Daniel L Ames,Jessica Schirmer

doi:10.1162/jocn.2010.21479

Jason P Mitchell, Daniel T Gilbert + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2010.21479

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Abstract

People often make shortsighted decisions to receive small benefits in the present rather than large benefits in the future, that is, to favor their current selves over their future selves. In two studies using fMRI, we demonstrated that people make such decisions in part because they fail to engage in the same degree of self-referential processing when thinking about their future selves. When participants predicted how much they would enjoy an event in the future, they showed less activity in brain regions associated with introspective self-reference--such as the ventromedial pFC (vMPFC)--than when they predicted how much they would enjoy events in the present. Moreover, the magnitude of vMPFC reduction predicted the extent to which participants made shortsighted monetary decisions several weeks later. In light of recent findings that the vMPFC contributes to the ability to simulate future events from a first-person perspective, these data suggest that shortsighted decisions result in part from a failure to fully imagine the subjective experience of one's future self.

Highlights

One of the enduring mysteries of human behavior is that people who can foresee the consequences of shortsighted decisions make them anyway (Berns, Laibson, & Loewenstein, 2007; Soman et al, 2005; Mischel, Shoda, & Rodriguez, 1989; Ainslie, 1975)
Because predictions about what will make ones future self happy may differ from ones immediate desires in the present, intertemporal choice requires negotiating among ones competing interests at these different times (“Id like to stay for another drink, but will probably regret it tomorrow morning”)
We first examined differences in fMRI BOLD response associated with participantspredictions of their present and future enjoyment by conducting a whole-brain analysis of present > future trials

Summary

Introduction

One of the enduring mysteries of human behavior is that people who can foresee the consequences of shortsighted decisions make them anyway (Berns, Laibson, & Loewenstein, 2007; Soman et al, 2005; Mischel, Shoda, & Rodriguez, 1989; Ainslie, 1975) People nap when they should be working, snack when they should be dieting, spend when they should be saving—and they do these things despite knowing full well that they will regret them later. Because predictions about what will make ones future self happy may differ from ones immediate desires in the present, intertemporal choice requires negotiating among ones competing interests at these different times (“Id like to stay for another drink, but will probably regret it tomorrow morning”) On this view, when we successfully assign equal value to the interests of our future and present selves, we may be able to suppress our present desires in favor of a future benefit. To the extent that we perceive our future self as “someone else”—a distinct entity whose preferences are distinct from or less impor-

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