| Summary: | The degree to which
individuals prefer smaller sooner versus larger delayed rewards serves as a
powerful predictor of their impulsivity towards a number of different kinds of
rewards. Here we test the limits of its predictive ability within a variety of
cognitive and social domains. Across several large samples of subjects,
individuals who prefer smaller more immediate rewards (steeper discounters) are
less reflective (or more impulsive) in their choices, preferences, and beliefs.
First, steeper discounters used more automatic, less controlled choice
strategies, giving more intuitive but incorrect responses on the Cognitive
Reflection Test (replicating previous findings); employing a suboptimal
probability matching heuristic for a one-shot gamble (rather than maximizing
their probability of reward); and relying less on optimal planning in a
two-stage reinforcement learning task. Second, steeper discounters preferred to
consume information that was less complex and multi-faceted, as suggested by
their self-reported Need for Cognitive Closure, their use of short-form social
media (i.e., Twitter), and their preferred news sources (in particular, whether
or not they preferred National Public Radio over other news sources). Third,
steeper discounters had interpersonal and religious beliefs that are associated
with reduced epistemic complexity: they were more likely to believe that the
behavior of others could be explained by fixed rather than dynamic factors, and
they believed more strongly in God and in the afterlife. Together these
findings provide evidence for a link between individual differences in temporal
discounting for monetary rewards and preferences for the path of least
resistance (less reflective and/or more automatic modes of processing) across a
variety of domains.
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