The Rate of Social Discounting Under Independent Manipulation of Reward Delay for Self and for Another Person

ABSTRACT

Previous research has shown that when individuals choose between a reward for themselves and a reward for another person, delaying both rewards by the same amount of time tends to shift preferences toward the reward for the other person. This study tested whether this effect results from a decrease in the subjective value of delayed self‐rewards, predicting that individuals with higher temporal discounting would make less selfish choices. We found that delaying the self‐reward increased preference for the other's reward, whereas delaying the other's reward increased preference for the self‐reward. However, contrary to our hypothesis, individuals with lower temporal discounting were less selfish than those with higher discounting, regardless of whether decisions applied to immediate or future outcomes and regardless of the social distance between the subject and the recipient of the reward. At the same time, the effect of delaying the self‐reward was stronger the higher the temporal discounting, but only when the recipient of the reward was a very close person. These findings suggest that the shift in preferences due to delay may not be solely driven by self‐reward devaluation, and that lower discounting may reflect broader prosocial tendencies.