The Effects of Obligatory and Preferential Frames on Delay Discounting

Abstract

Human decision making is partly determined by the verbal stimuli involved in a choice. Verbal stimuli that may be particularly relevant to human decision making are the words should and like, whereby should is presumably associated with what one ought to choose, and like is presumably associated with what one prefers to choose. The current study examined the potential effects of should and like on decisions in a monetary delay-discounting task. Eighty-three participants were recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk and were randomly assigned to a sequence of 2 conditions-should and like-in a repeated-measures experimental design. Based on condition assignment, the questions "Which should you choose?" and "Which would you like to choose?" appeared above each monetary option and its respective delay. Overall, participants demonstrated significantly lower levels of discounting in the should condition when compared to the like condition. However, this effect was much less consistent for participants exposed to the should condition prior to the like condition. The results of the current investigation indicate that the use of the words should and like constitutes separate classes of verbal stimuli that we refer to as obligatory and preferential frames. The effect of obligatory and preferential frames on delay discounting may be relevant to the prediction and control of decision making in social contexts.