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Choice patterns reveal qualitative individual differences among discounting of delayed gains, delayed losses, and probabilistic losses
- Source :
- J Exp Anal Behav
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Wiley, 2020.
-
Abstract
- A new probabilistic losses questionnaire as well as Kirby’s delayed gains questionnaire and a previously developed delayed losses questionnaire were administered to a large online sample. Almost all participants showed the positive discounting choice pattern expected on the Kirby questionnaire, decreasing their choice of a delayed gain as time to its receipt increased. In contrast, approximately 15% of the participants showed negative discounting on the delayed losses questionnaire and/or the probabilistic losses questionnaire, decreasing their choice of an immediate loss as time to a delayed loss decreased and/or decreasing their choice of a certain loss as likelihood of the probabilistic loss increased. Mixture model analysis confirmed the existence of these negative discounting subgroups. The inconsistent findings observed in previous research involving delayed/probabilistic losses may be due to differences in the proportion of negative discounters who participated in previous studies. Further research is needed to determine how negative discounting of delayed and probabilistic losses manifests itself in everyday decisions. It should be noted that the presence of individuals who show atypical choice patterns when losses are involved may pose challenges for efforts to modify discounting in order to ameliorate behavioral problems, especially because many such problems concern choices that have negative consequences, often delayed and/or probabilistic.
- Subjects :
- Adult
Male
050103 clinical psychology
Discounting
05 social sciences
Individuality
Probabilistic logic
Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Sample (statistics)
Choice Behavior
Article
Behavioral Neuroscience
Delay Discounting
Surveys and Questionnaires
Statistics
Humans
Female
0501 psychology and cognitive sciences
050102 behavioral science & comparative psychology
Psychology
Probability
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 19383711 and 00225002
- Volume :
- 113
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....c5f2d017876db48303b727d747ff4242