Delay discounting and utility for money or weight loss

Sze, Yan Yan; Slaven, E. M.; Bickel, Warren K.; Epstein, Leonard H.

doi:10.1002/osp4.72

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Secondly, there is absolutely no reason to believe that BMI would be wholly determined by discount rates. Weight management relies on a multitude of self-control decision making processes, including resisting temptation of immediate pleasure from calorie-dense treats, to obtain long-term rewards of health management (Sze, Slaven, Bickel, & Epstein, 2017). The most successful and sustainable weight-loss involves long-term goals that can be impeded by impulsive choices and the desire for immediate results (Artinian et al, 2010;Hall et al, 2012).…”

Section: Ways Forwardmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal discounting does not influence body mass index

Veillard

Vincent

2020

Physiology & Behavior

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The prevalence of obesity has driven searches for cognitive or behavioural economic factors related to Body Mass Index (BMI). One candidate is delay discounting: those who prefer smaller sooner rewards over larger but later rewards are hypothesised to have higher BMI. The findings in the literature are mixed however, with meta analyses suggesting only a very small correlation between discounting and BMI. Here we present novel empirical data (N = 381) and Bayesian analyses which suggest no such relationship between discounting of either monetary or weight loss rewards and BMI. We also find evidence against our novel proposal that discounting moderates the rate of BMI gain over time. We also present our data in the context of a random effects Bayesian meta-analytical result which does suggest the presence of a small correlation overall. The strength of the correlation is so weak (2.25% shared variance) that its practical significance may be minor to non existent. However because we found decisive evidence for unaccounted for study-level variance, due to study heterogeneity, we argue that we should treat such meta-analytic correlations with extreme caution. While the relationship between discounting and health outcomes such as BMI remain theoretically appealing, our empirical and meta-analytic results suggest we should be cautious in inferring a correlational, let alone a causal, role for discounting processes in driving BMI or moderating BMI gain with age.

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Section: Ways Forwardmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal discounting does not influence body mass index

Veillard

Vincent

2020

Physiology & Behavior

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“…These findings differ from past work in cross-commodity discounting. For example, researchers have compared delay discounting between money and food (e.g., Fazzino et al, 2022), alcohol (e.g., Moody et ETHICS A UNIQUE OUTCOME 15 al., 2017), methamphetamine (e.g., Yoon et al, 2018), and weight loss (Sze et al, 2017); and researchers have compared probability discounting between money and leisure activities (Hirst & DiGennaro Reed, 2016). The typical finding is that monetary outcomes are discounted less steeply than non-monetary outcomes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Choice with Ethical Outcomes: Sign Effect, Commodity Effect, & Ethical Theory Preference

Cox,

Javed

2023

Preprint

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Researchers have found significant utility in approaching choice from a behavioral economics lens. Recently, this framework has begun to be extended to the description and prediction of clinical-ethical choice. Here, researchers have found that common behavioral economics effects occur with clinical-ethical choice at the group level (e.g., framing effects, effort discounting, delay and probability discounting) and at the individual level (probability discounting). The current study sought to examine: the sign effect in ethical probability discounting, the commodity effect between monetary and ethical outcomes, and correlations among rates of monetary and ethical discounting, probability matching with money, and ethical theory preference. We observed: a sign effect with ethical outcomes consistent with past probability discounting research; a commodity effect with monetary outcomes discounted more steeply than ethical outcomes; no significant correlations among discounting tasks; and one of 12 statistically significant correlations between ethical theory preference and ethical discounting. In total, the present work further demonstrates the presence of behavioral economics effects with ethical decision-making. However, choice with ethical outcomes may not easily be predicted by choice with other commodities, measures in behavioral economics, or ethical theory preference.

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“…Reviews suggest that delay discounting could be a promising predictive measure of health behavior, as high discount rates for money are associated with several unhealthy behaviors and markers of health status . At this time, there is an emerging relation between delay discounting and weight loss ; however, the data on a relation between delay discounting and BMI is mixed .…”

Section: High‐priority Constructs and Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%