How Much Do We Discount Past Pleasures?

Abstract

Future-biased individuals systematically prefer pleasures to be in the future (positive future-bias) and pains to be in the past (negative future-bias). Empirical research shows that negative future-bias is robust: people prefer more past pain to less future pain. Is positive future-bias robust or fragile? Do people only prefer pleasures to be located in the future, compared to the past, when those pleasures are of equal value (fragile positive future-bias), or do they continue to prefer that pleasures be located in the future even when past pleasures outweigh future ones (robust positive future-bias)? Some arguments against the rationality of future-bias require positive future-bias to be robust, while others require it to be fragile. We empirically investigate and show that positive future-bias is robust.