Temporal Discounting in “Gain Now-Lose Later” and “Lose Now-Gain Later” Conditions

Abstract

Studies on temporal discounting typically involve choosing between two outcomes of the same sign, i.e., positive or negative. For example, participants often are given a choice between a smaller, sooner gain and a larger, but later gain, or (less commonly) the options may be a sooner, larger loss and a later, but smaller loss. In contrast, participants in this study (N= 129; 66 women and 63 men, volunteers from Warsaw, Poland, all employed, with college education, ranging in age from 23 to 50 years, M=32.3 yr., SD=7.4) had to make a yes-or-no decision as to whether they would accept a financial offer involving a combination of a gain and a loss. This offer could be either an immediate gain to be followed later by a larger loss or an immediate loss followed later by a larger gain. Despite the substantial differences between the options in the present study and those in typical discounting studies, the same hyperboloid discounting function that describes choice between immediate and delayed gains also accurately described choice in the substantially different situations presented in the present study. In addition, steeper discounting was observed with a smaller delayed outcome than with a larger delayed outcome.