Feelings of Dread and Intertemporal Choice

It frequently has been observed that people discount future rewards relative to present rewards. However, the literature on intertemporal choices involving emotional upsets and losses is fraught with inconsistencies, with some studies finding similar discounting of gains and losses, and others reporting that participants elect to undergo negative experiences sooner rather than later. To help resolve these contradictions, time preferences for different types of aversive experiences (social rejection, embarrassment, pain, monetary and property loss) were examined in five studies. Most participants preferred to postpone monetary and property losses, but intertemporal choices for other unpleasant experiences showed highly variable responses, with some participants deferring them as long as possible, and many electing to experience them immediately. Time preferences for these negative experiences were correlated, but were independent of time preference for rewards. It is argued (following Loewenstein, 1987) that anticipation of dread plays a key role in many people’s choices about timing of aversive experiences. This interpretation was supported by choices about when to learn of a very unpleasant event whose timing was fixed (Study 3), and by a novel preference reversal (Study 4). Study 5 examined how actual and hypothetical experiences of dread unfolded over time; the results were consistent with a dread-based interpretation of choices in the preceding studies. Copyright# 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. key words dread; affect; intertemporal choice; time discounting; fear