View of Times and Temporal Focus under the Pace of Life on the Impact of Intertemporal Decision Making

Abstract

Previous studies have explored the effects of time poverty and money worship on intertemporal decision making based on a resource scarcity perspective. However, how the pace of life affects intertemporal decision making has not been examined. Furthermore, manipulating time perceptions can influence intertemporal decision-making preferences. Based on the perspective of time perception differences, it remains unknown how views of time or temporal focus affect the intertemporal decision making of individuals with different pace of life. To address these issues, study 1 adopted a correlational study to initially explore the relationship between the pace of life and intertemporal decision making. Studies 2 and 3 used manipulation experiments to examine the effects of the pace of life and view of time and temporal focus and pace of life on intertemporal decision making. The results suggest that the faster the life pace, the more recent rewards are preferred. Views of time and temporal focus manipulations can influence the intertemporal decision making of faster-paced individuals, making them prefer smaller–sooner (SS) payoffs under a linear view of time or future temporal focus and larger–later (LL) payoffs under a circular view of time or past temporal focus. However, the manipulation does not affect the intertemporal decision of slower-paced individuals. Our study examined the effect of the pace of life on intertemporal decision making based on a resource scarcity perspective, and found boundary conditions for the influence of the view of time and temporal focus on intertemporal decision making based on the perspective of differences in people’s perception of time.