The Effect Of Future Event Markers On Intertemporal Choice

Intertemporal Choice refers to the weighing and selection of the value of events or results occurring at different time points.Time is an important factor in the study of intertemporal choice.When leaving the objective timing tools,the subjective time perception of individuals is often affected by the changes of external events.Future event markers are the events that will occur between the immediate and the long-term rewards.Studies have shown that an increase in the number of future event markers can increase or decrease an individual's subjective perception of time.Therefore,this paper introduces the concrete and abstract mental construal to mediate this influence,and explores how future event markers and concrete and abstract mental construal affect time perception and thus affect intertemporal choice.The theory of construal level proposes that concrete and abstract mind-set will make individuals process intertemporal choice tasks in a more abstract or concrete way.There are three experiments in this study.Experiment 1 wanted to verify whether the effect of different construal level mind-set on individuals' subjective time perception.Experiment 2 wanted to explore the influence of the interaction between future event markers and concrete and abstract mental construal set on time perception.In experiment 3,intertemporal choice task was added to explore the influence of future event markers and concrete and mind-set on intertemporal choice,as well as the effect of the mediator of time perception in this process.The main results of the study are as follows:Increasing the number of event markers between present and futur will increase the subjective time perception for those who activated by the concrete mind-set,and in the intertemporal choice,the preference is to choose the SS option.Increasing the number of event markers will decrease the subjective time perception for those who activated by the abstract mind-set,the preference is to choose the LL option.Time perception plays a partial mediator role in this process.In this paper,future event markers are introduced as a new predictor of time perception in the context of intertemporal choice,the literature on time perception is enriched,and further promotes the understanding of the psychological mechanism of intertemporal choice.