Residential mobility mindset enhances temporal discounting in the loss framework

Abstract

With the internationalization of human society, population mobility has greatly increased, which can affect people's psychological states and behaviors. Research on residential mobility is burgeoning, but few studies have linked this topic to decision making, particularly temporal discounting, in which individuals generally discount future gains and losses. In Study 1, we manipulated individuals’ residential mobility and stability and found that residential mobility heightened temporal discounting. In Study 2, which was designed to investigate the neural mechanism underlying this relationship, the participants gambled between two pictures and received temporal-related feedback, including gain and loss, while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. The results showed that the main effect of temporal discounting was reflected in the feedback-related negativity (FRN) component in the 180–340 ms time window. Additionally, the participants primed with mobility rather than stability exhibited a significant difference in FRN over the right-central electrodes between present and future large-amount losses but not between present and future large-amount or small-amount gains. Study 3 revealed that residential mobility increased the participant's sense of uncertainty, thereby enhancing temporal discounting. In conclusion, the current research reveals that residential mobility enhances temporal discounting by modulating the neural processes involved in evaluating monetary loss and by increasing the individual's sense of uncertainty. This research suggests that socioecological factors play important roles in individuals’ intertemporal decisions.