Białaszek Wojciech, Ostaszewski Paweł, Green Leonard, Myerson Joel
SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Chodakowska 19/31, 03-815 Warszawa, Poland.
Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA.
Psychol Rec. 2019 Sep;69(3):415-424. doi: 10.1007/s40732-019-00340-x. Epub 2019 Mar 22.
Discounting refers to decreases in the subjective value of an outcome with increases in some attribute of that outcome. The attributes most commonly studied are delay and probability, with far less research on effort and social discounting. Although these attributes all represent costs that reduce subjective value, it is as yet unclear how the extent to which they do so is related at the individual level. Accordingly, the present study examined the degree to which individual participants discounted hypothetical monetary rewards on each of four discounting tasks in which the delay, probability, effort, and number of people with whom the money was to be shared were manipulated. At the group level, larger amounts were discounted less steeply than smaller amounts when delay and effort were varied, whereas larger amounts were discounted more steeply when probability and number of people were varied. At the individual level, the correlational pattern was examined using exploratory factor analysis. A six-factor structure (with separate factors for delay and effort, and two factors each for social and probability discounting) described the relations among indifference points. At a more molar level, a two-factor structure, which corresponded to the direction of the observed magnitude effects, described the relations among area-under-the-curve measures of discounting in the eight conditions resulting from crossing two monetary amounts with the four cost factors. We conclude that despite sharing some similarities, individual and group differences in discounting involving the different types of costs reflect mostly separate processes and traits.
折扣是指随着结果的某些属性增加，该结果的主观价值下降。最常研究的属性是延迟和概率，而对努力和社会折扣的研究则少得多。虽然这些属性都代表降低主观价值的成本，但目前尚不清楚它们在个体层面上降低主观价值的程度是如何相关的。因此，本研究考察了个体参与者在四个折扣任务中对假设货币奖励的折扣程度，在这些任务中，延迟、概率、努力以及分享金钱的人数被操纵。在群体层面，当延迟和努力变化时，较大金额的折扣幅度比较小金额的折扣幅度更平缓，而当概率和人数变化时，较大金额的折扣幅度更陡峭。在个体层面，使用探索性因素分析来检验相关模式。一个六因素结构（延迟和努力各有一个单独因素，社会和概率折扣各有两个因素）描述了无差异点之间的关系。在更宏观的层面上，一个两因素结构对应于观察到的量级效应的方向，描述了由两个货币金额与四个成本因素交叉产生的八个条件下折扣曲线下面积测量值之间的关系。我们得出结论，尽管存在一些相似之处，但涉及不同类型成本的折扣中的个体和群体差异大多反映了不同的过程和特征。
