Judgment and Decision Making (Nov 2022)

Waiting is painful: The impact of anticipated dread on negative discounting in the loss domain

  • Hong-Yue Sun,
  • Jia-Tao Ma,
  • Lei Zhou,
  • Cheng-Ming Jiang,
  • Shu Li

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1930297500009451
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 17
pp. 1353 – 1378

Abstract

Read online

According to the positive time-discounting assumption of intertemporal decision-making, people prefer to undergo negative events in the future rather than in the present. However, negative discounting has been identified in the intertemporal choice and loss domains, which refers to people’s preference to experience negative events earlier rather than later. Studies have validated and supported the "anticipated dread" as an explanation for negative discounting. This study again explored the effect of anticipated dread on intertemporal choice using content analysis; that is, having participants identify anticipated dread among reasons for negative discounting. This study also validated the effect of anticipated dread on negative discounting by manipulating anticipated dread. This study adds empirical and direct evidence for the role of anticipated dread in negative discounting.

Keywords