Discount or trade off: The psychological mechanisms of intertemporal choice with double-dated mixed outcomes

Abstract

: Individuals, enterprises and countries need to make decisions involving different time nodes in real life. Such decisions are commonly measured by "intertemporal preference" in the field of behavioral decision-making. Actually, the most important and crucial kind of intertemporal decision making relevant to survival and development are intertemporal choice with double-dated mix outcomes. However, existing intertemporal preferences measure by paradigms with pure gain outcomes was found to be poor predictors of far-sighted behavior in real life. Besides, mature theoretical models of intertemporal choice could not satisfactorily explain people's real intertemporal preferences. To better describe and explain people's intertemporal preferences with double-dated mixed outcomes, the present project intends to: 1) synthesize indicators of intertemporal choice with double-dated mixed outcomes by using two different logics, providing predictive indicators for model comparison; 2) develop a new ecological paradigm of measuring intertemporal choice with double-dated outcomes, aiming to provide a more ecological and predictive measurement for the development of following research; 3) adopt the Mouselab and eye-tracking technique to test which model could more satisfactorily explain intertemporal preference with double-dated outcomes, the utility comparison model or the attribute-comparison model.