Thinking about neither death nor poverty affects delay discounting, but episodic foresight does: Three replications of the effects of priming on time preferences

Abstract

We outline three attempts to replicate experiments that reported priming effects on time preferences measured by delay discounting. Experiment 1 tested the claim that images of poverty prime impulsive choice in people from less affluent backgrounds compared with people from more affluent backgrounds. Experiment 2 tested the claim that mortality salience—thinking about death—primes people to place more value on the future than people who thought about dental surgery. Experiment 3 tested the claim that an episodic foresight manipulation primes greater discounting than no episodic foresight. Experiments 1 and 2 failed to replicate the effects of priming on discount rates. Experiment 3 was a successful and very close replication of the effect of episodic foresight on discount rates.