Anxiety and intertemporal decision making: The effect of the behavioral inhibition system and the moderation effects of trait anxiety on both state anxiety and socioeconomic status

a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Trait anxiety State anxiety Intertemporal decision making The behavioral inhibition system Family socioeconomic status in childhood Based on Gray's theory, which links the behavioral inhibition motivation system (BIS) to the personality trait of " anxiety " , the present study examined whether anxiety (trait vs. state), BIS sensitivity, and family socioeconomic status in childhood (SES) had an interactive or independent impact on intertemporal decision-making processes. The study also investigated whether participants with high trait anxiety had a significantly different choice preference on the immediate but smaller (SS) rewards over the larger but delayed (LL) rewards. Participants (N = 108) were randomly assigned to either the anxiety or the control condition. Results showed that people with a higher BIS score tended to choose less SS rewards. Trait anxiety was found to moderate both state anxiety and childhood SES to influence intertemporal decision processes. We further found high or low trait anxiety significantly influenced people's choice preference. Speculations on the psychological meanings of the findings were discussed from the perspective of biased risk perception. Limitations and implications were also discussed. Behavioral economics has played an important role in the field of decision making. In recent years, intertemporal decision making (also called delay discounting), which trades off the magnitude and immedi-acy of monetary rewards, has been extensively investigated from the perspective of impulsivity. For example, studies supported that drug-dependent individuals, who usually have high impulsive scores, show an excessive preference on the sooner but smaller (SS) hypothetical monetary reward over the larger delayed (LL) reward, compared to non-drug-dependent controls 2003). However, some recent studies provided evidence that impulsivity might not be the sole source explaining this kind of behavior. For example, people's perception of prospective time duration (Zauberman, Kim, Malkoc, & Bettman, 2009) and sensitivity of the behavioral inhibition system (Tuk, Trampe, & Warlop, 2011) influenced intertemporal preferences. Thus, the present study continued to examine the sources independent of impulsivity which might influence intertemporal choice preference. In particular, we focused on the behavioral inhibition motivation system , trait anxiety, and state anxiety. In addition, family socioeconomic status in childhood (SES) is considered as a factor in the present investigation because people's preference on monetary options might be significantly influenced by their early family economic status The behavioral inhibition system was first proposed by Gray (1987; Gray & McNaughton, 2000). According to …