Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2024 Aug 5;14(1):18130. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-67771-7.
When presented with the option of either an immediate benefit or a larger, later reward, we may behave impatiently by choosing instant gratification. Nonetheless, when we can make the same decision ahead of time and plan for the future, we tend to make more patient choices. Here, we explored whether great apes share this core feature of human decision-making, often referred to as dynamic inconsistency. We found that orangutans, bonobos, and gorillas tended to act impatiently and with considerable variability between individuals when choosing between an immediate reward and a larger-later reward, which is a commonly employed testing method in the field. However, with the inclusion of a front-end delay for both alternatives, their decisions became more patient and homogeneous. These results show that great apes are dynamically inconsistent. They also suggest that, when choosing between future outcomes, they are more patient than previously reported. We advocate for the inclusion of diverse time ranges in comparative research, especially considering the intertwinement of intertemporal choices and future-oriented behavior.
当面临即时收益和更大、更晚的奖励选择时，我们可能会因为选择即时满足而表现得不耐烦。然而，当我们能够提前做出相同的决策并为未来做好规划时，我们往往会做出更有耐心的选择。在这里，我们探讨了类人猿是否具有这种人类决策的核心特征，通常被称为动态不一致性。我们发现，猩猩、倭黑猩猩和大猩猩在选择即时奖励和更大、更晚的奖励之间时，往往表现出不耐烦和相当大的个体差异，这是该领域常用的测试方法。然而，当为两个选择都增加前端延迟时，它们的决策变得更加有耐心和一致。这些结果表明类人猿具有动态不一致性。它们还表明，当在未来的结果之间进行选择时，它们比之前报告的更有耐心。我们主张在比较研究中纳入不同的时间范围，特别是考虑到时间选择和面向未来的行为的交织。
