Different Roles Of Impulsivity And Procrastination In Delay Discounting Gain And Loss Contexts

Delay discounting was originally used to describe human behavior in the field ofbehavioral economics of the decision-making process. Delay discounting refers to thephenomenon that peoples subjective value decreases as the receipt of the reinforcerincreases. Previous studies usually used the gain context as the experiment scenariowhich asked participants to make choices between a sooner smaller reward (e.g.money) and a longer larger reward. It has been found that as the delay increases,participants are more likely to choose the sooner option, which reflects one’simpulsivity. Moreover, impulsivity has been considered as a prominent mechanismthat deals with delay discounting. Based on the predecessors research, this studyadded the loss context in addition to the traditional gain context as scenario, whichasked participants to make choices between a sooner smaller loss (e.g. money) and alonger larger loss.This study mainly chose college students in Shanghai as samples. First, theauthor used the questionnaire to inspect contemporary college students academicprocrastination tendency and impulsivity characteristics. Then, the author selectedparticipants who got high or low scores in PASS or BIS-11questionnaire. Based ondelay discounting paradigm, through paper and pencil test, the study researched thebehavior of delay discounting. The purpose of this study is not to repeat the previousstudies but to put emphasis on comparing the differences in decision mechanismsbetween gain and loss contexts of delay discounting tasks.This study used2×2×2×2mixed experimental design. Independent variable onewas score of PASS which included two levels; Independent variable two was score ofBIS-11which included two levels; Independent variable three was score of delaydiscounting which included two levels; Independent variable four was gender whichincluded two levels. Dependent variable was the area under the curve (AUC), as theindex of the participant’s decision score.The results were found that (1) The discounting rate in gain context was greaterthan it in loss context.(2) Impulsivity only played a role in the gain context rather than in the loss context at the significant level of0.001. Participants with higherimpulsivity were more likely to choose the sooner smaller reward rather than thelater larger reward.(3) Procrastination only had an impact in the loss context ratherthan in the gain context at the significant level of0.001. Participants who had ahigher level of procrastination showed stronger preference towards the longer largerloss than the shorter smaller loss.(4) In loss context, the mens discounting rate wassignificantly larger than womens discounting rate.(5) It was able to build dualregression prediction model: Y=-0.13Xi-0.11Xp+17.48and monadic regressionprediction model: Y=-0.48Xp+17.15. At last, the study put forward some suggestionsabout financial management and learning in our daily life.