Thinking about your future self: Do better perspective-takers make more patient decisions?

Abstract

Decisions involving costs and rewards materialising at different points in time (intertemporal decisions) are prevalent in everyday life and can have significant consequences for well-being across the lifespan. Recent neuroimaging research points to overlapping neural mechanisms in intertemporal decision-making and perspective-taking, suggesting they may involve common cognitive processes, but there has been limited research examining whether individual differences in these two capacities are related at a behavioural level. The present study tested the hypothesis that individuals with better perspective-taking abilities would make more future-oriented decisions. 235 participants (200 after exclusions) completed an intertemporal choice task, followed by behavioural and self-report measures of perspective-taking. Contrary to expectations, there were no overall correlations between perspective-taking measures and intertemporal decision-making. However, exploratory analysis found that perspective-taking abilities were increasingly associated with future-oriented decisions among participants who perceived themselves to be higher on the socioeconomic ladder, with some evidence indicating that among low socioeconomic status individuals, better perspective-takers may be more likely to discount future rewards. These findings suggest that rather than enabling patience, perspective-taking abilities may facilitate greater flexibility in intertemporal decision-making, potentially increasing or decreasing temporal discounting depending on the environmental context of the decision-maker.