The Effect Of Time Awareness On Intertemporal Choice

Time is rushing to the distant future from the past which no one can tell its origin and its end either. Leaving alone individuals living in the sea of time fell at sea. The future we can touch is limited by our lifespan. Our choices deeply affected by the perception of future time. We can not exist if get rid of the time, nor what kind of choice can be carried out without participation of time. There is one type what so called intertemporal choice, people often need to weigh the costs and benefits at different time points (especially between the present and the future), and make out a decision after a hard tradeoff. The intertemporal choice involved in many aspects of our lives, ranging from individual’s diet and specific economic behavior in daily life, to groups, organizations and even the country, multinational organizations’formulation of public policies. Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, has pointed out that. the intertemporal choice not only affects a person’s health, happiness and wealth, but also related to the prosperity and the health degree of the national and the world economy.The value of benefits of the different time points in intertemporal choice needs to be evaluated and extracted the cost of time as individuals which is called time discount. Therefore, the perception of the time is an important factor in the intertemporal choice. Klapproth (2008) pointed out that the time discount attributes to at least two reasons in delaying discounts task:the delay time individuals perceived, and individual’s future time perspective (FTP for short). These two aspects are the composition of the individual psychological time. Excluding time factor, from the view of psychological time, here we regard time perception and FTP as a union concept called time awareness. We adapt to Time Estimation Task as an index of the levels of time perception, company with FTP. two experiments were designed to insight the effects of time awareness on intertemporal choice.Questionnaires are used about FTP, impulsivity&self-control select out participates according to their score before conducting research one. Meanwhile, indifferent-point as a rough measure of the level of time discounting is employed in intertemporal choice. Volunteers are divided into high and low FTP groups, and high impulsivity&low self-control vs. low impulsivity&high self control groups that is preparing for the later Time Estimation Task. Preliminary analysis shows that the level of FTP and impulsivity appears negatively skewed distribution, but self-control was positively skewed distribution; the indifference-point represent intertemporal discount degree is marginally significant positive correlation with FTP and self-control on.05levels, while a significant negative correlation with self-control on0.01levels. In addition, the analysis found FTP was significantly related to impulsivity negatively, significant positive correlation with self-control, while self-control and impulsivity shows a significant negative correlation.A2(time interval) x2(subject type) x2(task difficulty) three-factor mixed design was conducted to examine the effect of future time perceptive on intertemporal choice in research one. Independent variable quantity involves time intervals (every three days, every six days), subject type (high-FTP, low-FTP) and task difficulty (difficult, easy); as the dependent variable quantity is subject to choice preference, the reaction time (RT) of the immediate option was selected as its measurement indicators. The results showed that:1. the main effect was significant because of the RT and the reaction probability (RP). FTP level affect subject’s response bias in intertemporal choice task. High FTP subjects are willing to spend more time to balance the options, and finally select the later larger options, willing to sacrifice the time to maximize the utility. The maximal RP is merely up to about50%on average, indicating that subjects can well regulate themselves and suppress their time preference tendency to choose the immediate option in intertemporal choice.Research two, after dividing the subjects into two groups through time reproduction task, we adopted the same design and found that:with the becoming smaller difference, time-distance underestimated group’s choice gradually becomes difficult or careful before their making a choice, but the final choice is not much different in the immediate option results:oppositely, time-distance overestimated group are unacted on the time interval and task difficulty, showing more preferences to sooner smaller options. However, the separation between reaction time and RP in Time Estimation task, it prevented us further examining the interactions between factors in intertermporal choice, which prompted us, perhaps Time Estimation is not. at least in the intertemporal choice is not very good indicators to measure time perception level.The general discovery of research one and two is:the larger interval doesn’t significantly increase the difficulty of choice, but depends on the subject’s preference bias and their willingness on waiting for profit. This implies that different time intervals have different meaning and value to different subject types, but the meaning and value of specific time interval are still unclear, it needs later further study by other experimental design and technical approach.The overall conclusion of this study can be summarized as follows:(1) high-FTP subjects are able to regulate their time preferences in intertemporal choice task and are willing to sacrifice time to weigh options giving themselves max utility finally. On the contrary, low-FTP subjects are more inclined to choose the sooner smaller option.(2) time-distance underestimated group are more careful in intertemporal choice task without no significant difference on the final choice of the immediate options in the results. This result is slightly different from former research interpreted spending more time as a rational choice, on the contrary, time-distance overestimated group were more inclined to choose sooner smaller amount.(3) Different time awareness type have different impact on intertemporal choice selection preferences, different time intervals have different meaning and value to different subject types, but the meaning and value of specific time interval are still unclear, it needs later further study to examine. In addition, the decision-making between the time and money is irrelevant rational. We should be noted the value guidance deviation in the study of intertemporal choice.