Judgment and Decision Making (Aug 2011)

Why do professional athletes have different time preferences than non-athletes?

  • Alex Krumer,
  • Tal Shavit,
  • Mosi Rosenboim

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1930297500002503
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6
pp. 542 – 551

Abstract

Read online

The objective of this paper is to measure and compare the subjective time discounting of professional athletes and non-athletes. By using a questionnaire, we found higher subjective discounting for professional athletes than for non-athletes. We also found that the professional athletes’ win-orientation positively affected their present preferences. On the other hand, professional athletes’ play- orientation, which reflects their attitude towards the game itself, negatively affected their present preferences. No such effects were found in non-athletes. We argue that the “win-at-all-costs” competitive approach that leads athletes to sacrifice everything in order to win may cause (or reflect) their higher preference for the present.

Keywords