The role of chronic pain and pain anxiety in delay discounting of pain and monetary losses.

Pain may alter intertemporal decisions by modifying the value of pain-related outcomes. For example, a person with chronic back pain may be faced with two choices: undergo surgery that could provide long-term relief but would involve additional short-term pain and discomfort during recovery; or continue living with the chronic pain and avoid the surgery, thus leading to overall deteriorated health. Such choices are well captured by delay discounting, which is defined as the decline in the subjective value of an outcome as the delay of its receipt increases.

Delay discounting of money and health outcomes, and adherence to policy guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Delay discounting refers to the observation that the subjective value of an outcome decreases as the delay to its receipt increases. It is well-established that steep delay discounting is related to various maladaptive behaviors, including poorer health-related choices. One of the current challenges of public health policies that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic is to encourage preventive behaviors against infectious diseases.

The globalizability of temporal discounting.

Economic inequality is associated with preferences for smaller, immediate gains over larger, delayed ones. Such temporal discounting may feed into rising global inequality, yet it is unclear whether it is a function of choice preferences or norms, or rather the absence of sufficient resources for immediate needs. It is also not clear whether these reflect true differences in choice patterns between income groups.

Everything comes at a price: Considerations in modeling effort-based choice.

When observing human behavior, one of the key factors determining choice is effort. It is often assumed that people prefer an easier course of action when the alternative yields the same benefits. However, recent research demonstrates that this is not always the case: effort is not always costly and can also add value.

Gain-loss asymmetry in delay and effort discounting of different amounts.

Loss aversion entails that people attribute greater weight to losses than to equivalent gains. In terms of discounting, it is reflected in a higher discounting rate for gains than for losses. Research on delay discounting indicates that such gain-loss asymmetry may depend on the amount of the outcome being considered.