Abstract
The models of internal self-control that have recently been proposed by behavioral economists do not depict motivational interaction that occurs while temptation is present. Those models that include willpower at all either envision a faculty with a motivation (“strength”) different from the motives that are weighed in the marketplace of choice, or rely on incompatible goals among diverse brain centers. Both assumptions are questionable, but these models’ biggest problem is that they do not let resolutions withstand re-examination while being challenged by impulsive alternatives. The economists’ models all attempt to make a single equilibrium preference predictable from a person’s prior incentives. This was the original purpose of these models’ hyperboloid (“β–δ”) delay discount functions, which have been widely justified by the assumption that a person’s intertemporal inconsistency (impulsiveness) can be accounted for by the arousal of appetite for visceral rewards. Although arousal is clearly a factor in some cases of intertemporal inconsistency, it cannot be blamed for others, and furthermore does not necessarily imply hyperboloid discounting. The inadequacy of β–δ functions is particularly evident in models of internal self-control. I have reviewed several of these models, and have argued for a return to pure hyperbolic discount function as originally proposed, the relatively high tails of which can motivate a recursive process of self-prediction and thereby the formation of self-enforcing intertemporal contracts. Such a process does not require a separately motivated faculty of will, or incompatible goals among brain centers; but it also does not permit the prediction of unique preferences from prior incentives.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ainslie G. (1974) Impulse control in pigeons. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 21: 485–489
Ainslie G. (1975) Specious reward: A behavioral theory of impulsiveness and impulse control. Psychological Bulletin 82: 463–496
Ainslie G. (1991) Derivation of “rational” economic behavior from hyperbolic discount curves. American Economic Review 81: 334–340
Ainslie G. (1992) Picoeconomics: The strategic interaction of successive motivational states within the person. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Ainslie G. (2001) Breakdown of will. Cambridge University Press, New York
Ainslie G. (2007) Can thought experiments prove anything about the will?. In: Spurrett D., Ross D., Kincaid H., Stephens L. (eds) Distributed cognition and the will: Individual volition and social context. MIT, Cambridge
Ainslie G. (2010a) Procrastination, the basic impulse. In: Andreou C., White M. (eds) The thief of time: Philosophical essays on procrastination. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 11–27
Ainslie G. (2010b) Hyperbolic discounting versus conditioning and framing as the core process in addictions and other impulses. In: Ross D., Kincaid H., Spurrett D., Collins P. (eds) What is addiction?. MIT, Cambridge
Ainslie G. (2011) “Free will” as recursive self-prediction: Does a deterministic mechanism reduce responsibility?. In: Poland J., Graham G. (eds) Addiction and responsibility. MIT, Cambridge
Ainslie G., Haendel V. (1983) The motives of the will. In: Gottheil E., Druley K., Skodola T., Waxman H. (eds) Etiology aspects of alcohol and drug abuse. Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, pp 119–140
Ainslie G., Herrnstein R. (1981) Preference reversal and delayed reinforcement. Animal Learning and Behavior 9: 476–482
Ainslie G., Monterosso J. (2003) Building blocks of self-control: Increased tolerance for delay with bundled rewards. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 79: 83–94
Ainslie G., Monterosso J. (2004) A marketplace in the brain?. Science 306: 421–423
Ariely D., Wertenbroch K. (2002) Procrastination, deadlines, and performance: Self-control by pre-commitment. Psychological Science 13(3): 219–224
Baumeister R. F., Gailliot M., DeWall C. N., Oaten M. (2006) Self-regulation and personality: How interventions increase regulatory success, and how depletion moderates the effects of traits on behavior. Journal of Personality 74: 1773–1801
Bechara A. (2006) Broken willpower: Impaired mechanisms of decision-making and impulse control in substance abusers. In: Sebanz N., Prinz W. (eds) Disorders of volition. MIT, Cambridge, pp 399–418
Benabou R., Pycia M. (2002) Dynamic inconsistency and self-control: A planner–doer interpretation. Economics Letters 77: 419–424
Bénabou R., Tirole J. (2004) Willpower and personal rules. Journal of Political Economy 112: 848–886
Benhabib J., Bisin A. (2005) Modeling internal commitment mechanisms and self-control: A neuroeconomics approach to consumption-saving decisions. Games and Economic Behavior 52: 460–492
Bentall R. P., Lowe C. F., Beasty A. (1985) The role of verbal behavior in human learning II: Developmental differences. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 43: 165–181
Berns G. S., Laibson D., Loewenstein G. (2007) Intertemporal choice: Toward an integrative framework. Neuroeconomics 11: 482–488
Bickel W. K., Odum A. L., Madden G. J. (1999) Impulsivity and cigarette smoking: Delay discounting in current, never, and ex-smokers. Psychopharmacology 146: 447–454
Bodner, R., & Prelec, D. (1997). The diagnostic value of actions in a self-signaling model. Paper delivered at the Norwegian Research Council Working Group on addiction, Oslo, Norway, May 26, 1995, MIT working paper.
Bodner R., Prelec D. (2001) The diagnostic value of actions in a self-signaling model. In: Brocas I., Carillo J. D. (eds) Collected essays in Psychology and economics. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Bratman E. M. (1999) Faces of intention: Selected essays on intention and agency. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Brocas I., Carrillo D. J. (2008) The brain as a hierarchical organization. American Economic Review 98: 1312–1346
Carter S. T., Tiffany B. L. (2001) The cue-availability paradigm: The effects of cigarette availability on cue reactivity in smokers. Experimental and Clinical Psychophamacology 9: 183–190
Coller, M., Harrison, G. W., & Rutström, E. E. (2010). Latent process heterogeneity in discounting behavior. Oxford economic papers.
Cropper M. L., Aydede S. K., Portney P. R. (1992) Rates of time preference for saving lives. American Economic Review 82: 469–472
Dar R., Stronguin F., Marouani R., Krupsky M., Frenk H. (2005) Craving to smoke in orthodox Jewish smokers who abstain on the Sabbath: A comparison to a baseline and a forced abstinence workday. Psychopharmacology 183: 294–299
Darcheville J. C., Riviere V., Wearden J. (1993) Fixed interval performance and self-control in infants. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 60: 239–254
Deluty M. Z., Whitehouse W. G., Millitz M., Hineline P. (1983) Self-control and commitment involving aversive events. Behavioral Analysis Letters 3: 213–219
Elster J. (1979) Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in rationality and irrationality. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Field M., Duka T. (2001) Smoking expectancy mediates the conditioned responses to arbitrary smoking cues. Behavioural Pharmacology 12: 183–194
Frederick S., Loewenstein G., O’Donoghue T. (2002) Time discounting and time preference: A critical review. Journal of Economic Literature 40: 351–401
Freud, S. (1915/1956). The unconscious. In J. Strachey & A. Freud (Eds.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 14, pp. 161–215). London: Hogarth Press.
Fudenberg D., Levine D. K. (2006) A dual-self model of impulse control. American Economic Review 96: 1449–1476
Fudenberg, D., & Levine, D. (2010). Timing and self-control. Working paper.
Garner D. M., Wooley S. C. (1991) Confronting the failure of behavioral and dietary treatments of obesity. Clinical Psychology Review 11: 767
Garvey, A. J., Kinnunen, T., Quiles, Z. N., & Vokonas, P. S. (2002). Smoking cessation patterns in adult males followed for 35 years. Poster presented at the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco Annual Meetings, Savannah, GA. http://www.hsdm.harvard.edu/pdf-files/Dr._Garvey.pdf.
Green L., Fisher E. B. Jr., Perlow S., Sherman L. (1981) Preference reversal and self-control: Choice as a function of reward amount and delay. Behavior Analysis Letters 1: 43–51
Green L., Fristoe N., Myerson J. (1994) Temporal discounting and preference reversals in choice between delayed outcomes. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 1: 386
Green J., Myerson L. (2004) A discounting framework for choice with delayed and probabilistic rewards. Psychological Bulletin 130: 769–792
Green L., Myerson J., Holt D. D., Slevin J. R., Estle S. J. (2004) Discounting of delayed food rewards in pigeons and rats: Is there a magnitude effect?. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 81: 39–50
Green L., Myerson J., Macaux E. W. (2005) Temporal discounting when the choice is between two delayed rewards. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 31: 1121–1133
Gul F., Pesendorfer W. (2001) Temptation and self-control. Econometrics 69(6): 1403–1435
Gul F., Pesendorfer W. (2004) Self-control, revealed preference and consumption choice. Review of Economic Dynamics 7: 243–264
Hanson C. (2009) Thinking about addiction: Hyperbolic discounting and responsible agency. Rodopi, New York
Harrison G. W., Lau M. I., Williams M. B. (2002) Estimating individual discount rates for Denmark: A field experiment. American Economic Review 92: 1606–1617
Harvey C. M. (1994) The reasonableness of non-constant discounting. Journal of Public Economics 53: 31–51
Heidhues P., Koszegi B. (2009) Futile attempts at self-control. Journal of the European Economic Association 7: 423–434
Helzer J. E., Burnham A., McEvoy L. T. (1991) Alcohol abuse and dependence. In: Robins L. N., Regier D. A. (eds) Psychiatric disorders in America: The epidemiologic catchment area study. Free Press, New York, pp 81–115
Herrnstein R. (1961) Relative and absolute strengths of response as a function of frequency of reinforcement. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 4: 267–272
Herrnstein, R. J. (1997). In H. Rachlin & D. I. Laibson (Eds.), The matching law: Papers in psychology and economics. New York: Sage.
Heyman G. M. (1996) Resolving the contradictions of addiction. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19: 561–610
Heyman M. G. (2009) Addiction: A disorder of choice. Harvard University Press, Harvard
Hofmeyr A., Ainslie G., Charlton R., Ross D. (2010) The relationship between addiction and reward bundling: An experiment comparing smokers and non-smokers. Addiction 106: 402–409
Holton R. (2009) Determinism, self-efficacy, and the phenomenology of free will. Inquiry 52: 412–428
Hsiaw, A. (2009). Goal-setting, social comparison and self-control. Retrieved January 25, 2010, from Princeton University, Department of Economics website: https://www.princeton.edu/economics/seminar-schedule-by-prog/behavioral-f09/Hsiaw-Paper.pdf .
James W. (1890) Principles of psychology. Holt, New York
Kable J. W., Glimcher P. W. (2007) The neural correlates of subjective value during intertemporal choice. Nature Neuroscience 10: 1625–1633
Kirby K. N. (1997) Bidding on the future: Evidence against normative discounting of delayed rewards. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 126: 54–70
Kirby K. N. (2006) The present values of delayed rewards are approximately additive. Behavioral Processes 72: 273–282
Kirby K. N., Guastello B. (2001) Making choices in anticipation of similar future choices can increase self-control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 7: 154–164
Kirby K. N., Herrnstein R. J. (1995) Preference reversals due to myopic discounting of delayed reward. Psychological Science 6: 83–89
Kirby K. N., Marakovic N. (1995) Modeling myopic decisions: Evidence for hyperbolic delay-discounting within subjects and amounts. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 64: 22–30
Koopmans T. C. (1960) Stationary ordinal utility and impatience. Econometrica 47: 263–291
Koszegi B., Rabin M. (2009) Reference dependent consumption plans. American Economic Review 99: 909–936
Laibson, D. (1994). Hyperbolic discounting and consumption. PhD thesis, MIT.
Laibson D. (1997) Golden eggs and hyperbolic discounting. Quarterly Journal of Economics 62: 443–479
Loewenstein G. (1996) Out of control: Visceral influences on behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 35: 272–292
Loewenstein G. F. (1999) A visceral account of addiction. In: Elster J., Skog O.-J. (eds) Getting hooked: Rationality and addiction. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Loewenstein, G. F., & O’Donoghue, T. (2004). Animal spirits: Affective and deliberative processes in economic behavior. CAE working paper #0414. http://ssrn.com/abstract=539843.
Loewenstein, G. F., & O’Donoghue, T. (2007). The heat of the moment: Modeling interactions between affect and deliberation. http://www.cramton.umd.edu/workshop/papers/loewenstein-odonoghue-heat-of-the-moment.pdf.
Marshall A. (1921) Industry and trade. Macmillan, London
Mazur J. E. (1986) Choice between single and multiple delayed reinforcers. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 46: 67–77
Mazur J. E. (1987) An adjusting procedure for studying delayed reinforcement. In: Commons M. L., Mazur J. E., Nevin J. A., Rachlin H. (eds) Quantitative analyses of behavior V: The effect of delay and of intervening events on reinforcement value. Erlbaum, Hillsdale
Mazur J. E., Biondi D. R. (2009) Delay-amount tradeoffs in choices by pigeons and rates: Hyperbolic versus exponential discounting. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 91(2): 197–211
McClennen E. F. (1990) Rationality and dynamic choice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
McClennen E. F. (1997) Pragmatic rationality and rules. Philosophy and Public Affairs 26: 210–258
McClure S. M., Ericson K. M., Laibson D. I., Loewenstein G., Cohen J. D. (2007) Time discounting for primary rewards. The Journal of Neuroscience 27: 5796–5804
McClure S. M., Laibson D. I., Loewenstein G., Cohen J. D. (2004) The grasshopper and the ant: Separate neural systems value immediate and delayed monetary rewards. Science 306: 503–507
Mijovic-Prelec D., Prelec D. (2010) Self-deception as self-signaling: A model and experimental evidence. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Science 365(1538): 227–240
Mischel W., Moore B. (1980) The role of ideation in voluntary delay for symbolically-presented rewards. Cognitive Therapy and Research 4: 211–221
Monterosso J., Ainslie G. (1999) Beyond discounting: Possible experimental models of impulse control. Psychopharmacology 146: 339–347
Muraven M. (2006) Conserving self-control strength. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 91: 524–537
Muraven M., Baumeister R. (2000) Self-regulation and depletion of limited resources: Does self-control resemble a muscle?. Psychological Bulletin 126: 247–259
Musau, A. (2009). Modeling alternatives to exponential discounting. Munich Personal Repec Archive (MPRA) paper no. 16416, June 2. http://mpra.ub.unimuenschen.de/16416/.
Navarick D. J. (1982) Negative reinforcement and choice in humans. Learning and Motivation 13: 361–377
O’Donoghue T., Rabin M. (1999) Doing it now or later. The American Economic Review 89(1): 103–124
O’Donoghue T., Rabin M. (2000) The economics of immediate gratification. Journal of Behavioral Decision-Making 13: 233–250
O’Donoghue T., Rabin M. (2001) Choice and procrastination. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 116: 121–160
Phelps E. S., Pollack R. A. (1968) On second-best national saving and game-equilibrium growth. Review of Economic Studies 35: 185–199
Pine A., Shiner T., Seymour B., Dolan R. (2010) Dopamine, time, and impulsivity in humans. The Journal of Behavioral Neuroscience 30(26): 8888–8896
Rachlin H. (1995) Self-control: Beyond commitment. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 18: 109–159
Rachlin, H. (2005). Problems with internalization. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28(5), 658–659.
Read D., Loewenstein G., Rabin M. (1999) Choice bracketing. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 19: 171–197
Samuelson P. A. (1937) A note on measurement of utility. Review of Economic Studies 4: 155–161
Schelling T. C. (1980) The intimate contest for self-command. The Public Interest 60: 94–118
Smart R. G. (1975) Spontaneous recovery in alcoholics: A review and analysis of the available research. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 1: 277–285
Sonuga-Barke E. J. S., Lea S. E. G., Webley P. (1989) Children’s choice: Sensitivity to changes in reinforce density. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 51: 185–197
Strotz R. H. (1956) Myopia and inconsistency in dynamic utility maximization. Review of Economic Studies 23: 166–180
Telser L. G. (1980) A theory of self-enforcing agreements. Journal of Business 53: 27–45
Thaler R., Shefrin H. (1981) An economic theory of self-control. Journal of Political Economy 89: 392–406
Trope Y., Fishback A. (2000) Counteractive self-control in overcoming temptation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79: 493–506
Wertenbroch K. (1998) Consumption self-control by rationing purchase quantities of virtue and vice. Marketing Science 17: 317–337
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This material is the result of work supported with resources and the use of facilities at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Coatesville, PA, USA. The opinions expressed are not those of the Department of Veterans Affairs or of the US Government. I thank Glenn Harrison, Don Ross, Jon Monterosso, and an anonymous referee for comments on earlier drafts, and Lynne Debiak for the artwork.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ainslie, G. Pure hyperbolic discount curves predict “eyes open” self-control. Theory Decis 73, 3–34 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11238-011-9272-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11238-011-9272-5