Dysphoric mood and preference for immediate versus delayed monetary reinforcement.

It has been proposed that depression is the product of deficits in self-management skills: self-monitoring, self-evaluation, and self-reinforcement. While interventions based on this theory have shown promise, some of the basic tenets upon which the theory is based lack empirical support. The present experiment tested one such tenet--the claim that depressed individuals select smaller more immediate reinforcers (an impulsive choice) at the expense of larger more delayed reinforcers (a self-control choice).

What makes people study more? An evaluation of factors that affect self-paced study.

Allocation of study time across items was investigated in three experiments. According to the norm-affects-allocation hypothesis, when studying an item, a person changes the sought-after degree of learning for the item (called the norm of study) in an attempt to achieve task goals. As the norm of study is increased, more time will be allocated for study.