Thinking about your future self: Do better perspective-takers make more patient decisions?

Fletcher, Daniel; Spence, Alexa; Houghton, Robert

Abstract

Decisions involving costs and rewards materialising at different points in time (intertemporal decisions) are prevalent in everyday life and can have significant consequences for well-being across the lifespan. Recent neuroimaging research points to overlapping neural mechanisms in intertemporal decision-making and perspective-taking, suggesting they may involve common cognitive processes, but there has been limited research examining whether individual differences in these two capacities are related at a behavioural level. The present study tested the hypothesis that individuals with better perspective-taking abilities would make more future-oriented decisions. 235 participants (200 after exclusions) completed an intertemporal choice task, followed by behavioural and self-report measures of perspective-taking. Contrary to expectations, there were no overall correlations between perspective-taking measures and intertemporal decision-making. However, exploratory analysis found that perspective-taking abilities were increasingly associated with future-oriented decisions among participants who perceived themselves to be higher on the socioeconomic ladder, with some evidence indicating that among low socioeconomic status individuals, better perspective-takers may be more likely to discount future rewards. These findings suggest that rather than enabling patience, perspective-taking abilities may facilitate greater flexibility in intertemporal decision-making, potentially increasing or decreasing temporal discounting depending on the environmental context of the decision-maker.

Citation

Fletcher, D., Spence, A., & Houghton, R. (2023). Thinking about your future self: Do better perspective-takers make more patient decisions?. Personality and Individual Differences, 212, Article 112281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2023.112281

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 26, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Jun 1, 2023
• Publication Date: 2023-10
• Deposit Date: Mar 24, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 26, 2025
• Journal: Personality and Individual Differences
• Print ISSN: 0191-8869
• Electronic ISSN: 1873-3549
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 212
• Article Number: 112281
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2023.112281
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/46997272
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886923002040?via%3Dihub
• Additional Information: This article is maintained by: Elsevier; Article Title: Thinking about your future self: Do better perspective-takers make more patient decisions?; Journal Title: Personality and Individual Differences; CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2023.112281; Content Type: article; Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.