Effects Of Episodic Simulation On Intertemporal Choice

People often think about the future in their daily lives by projecting themselves into future events and reconstructing memory elements through the process of episodic simulation,which includes both episodic future thinking and episodic past thinking.Episodic future thinking allows people to pre-experience future rewards,making it an important behavior that can affect intertemporal choice.However,previous studies investigating the effects of episodic future thinking on intertemporal choice may have used inappropriate models and methods for measuring time discounting rates,as well as inappropriate control groups such as episodic recent thinking.To obtain more consistent results with the decision process in intertemporal choice,attribute-wise models should be used.According to the Construal Level Theory,projecting oneself into future events can reduce perceived subjective distance by increasing event details.The influence of episodic future thinking on intertemporal choice may lies in the similarity between time distance of scenario and decision context.Therefore,comparing the influence of episodic future thinking and episodic past thinking on intertemporal choice under the same time condition may reveal the mechanism by which episodic simulation affects intertemporal choice.Recruiting college students as participants,three studies were conducted to examine the effects of scenario simulation on intertemporal decision-making and the mediating role of interdimensional differences.Study 1 compared the effects of different directions of episodic simulation on intertemporal choice and explored the tag effect on episodic simulation that affects intertemporal choice without presenting time cues.The result showed that both episodic future thinking and episodic past thinking reduced participant’s time discounting rate,and there was no significant difference in their effects on intertemporal choice.Study 2 compared the effects of the different directions of episodic simulation on intertemporal choice using an attributewise compare task.The results showed that episodic future thinking significant increased participant’s preference for delayed rewards,and this effect could be mediated by attribute-wise comparison.This means that episodic future thinking increased participant’s perceived difference of monetary attribute and the preference of delayed rewards.In study 3,episodic content correlation and episodic simulation content are introduced to further explore the impact of content on the relationship between episodic simulation and intertemporal choice.The results of study 3A showed that episodic context correlation did not moderate the influence of episodic simulation on attribute-wise compare,but high correlation with decision context increased individual’s preference for delayed reward and the scores of attribute-wise compare task.The results of study 3B showed that process simulation moderated the influence of episodic simulation on attribute-wise compare under decision problem 1,and the process simulation reduced participant’s preference for delayed reward and the scores of the attribute-wise compare task.Overall,the four studies showed that episodic future thinking can increase individual’s preference for delayed rewards,and this effect is greater than that of episodic past thinking.Episodic context can further affect the relationship between episodic simulation and intertemporal choice,especially in delayed reward preference.