[link] Prepared to wait? New research challenges the idea that we favour small rewards now over bigger later

Kaj_Sotala

http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2012/07/prepared-to-wait-new-research.html

The old idea that we make decisions like rational agents has given way over the last few decades to a more realistic, psychologically informed picture that recognises the biases and mental short-cuts that sway our thinking. Supposedly one of these is hyperbolic discounting - our tendency to place disproportionate value on immediate rewards, whilst progressively undervaluing distant rewards the further in the future they stand. But not so fast, say Daniel Read at Warwick Business School and his colleagues with a new paper that fails to find any evidence for the phenomenon.

http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2012/07/prepared-to-wait-new-research.html

The old idea that we make decisions like rational agents has given way over the last few decades to a more realistic, psychologically informed picture that recognises the biases and mental short-cuts that sway our thinking. Supposedly one of these is hyperbolic discounting - our tendency to place disproportionate value on immediate rewards, whilst progressively undervaluing distant rewards the further in the future they stand. But not so fast, say Daniel Read at Warwick Business School and his colleagues with a new paper that fails to find any evidence for the phenomenon.

This is the kind of thing which makes me wonder about a community norm of taking psychological research (which may be badly designed or prove less than it seems to) very seriously.

It's not just a community norm, big chunks of the sequences seem to be built on small amounts of recent research.

0Despard14y

It's definitely a good idea to be skeptical. There is definitely some badly-designed research out there, and some that shows less than it claims to. The best way to deal with that is to read the original papers and make sure the studies were adequately performed, although this doesn't entirely solve the issue (see: publication bias).

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[link] Prepared to wait? New research challenges the idea that we favour small rewards now over bigger later

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[link] Prepared to wait? New research challenges the idea that we favour small rewards now over bigger later

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