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Article

Present Bias and Everyday Self-Control Failures: A Day Reconstruction ±¬ÁϳԹÏÍø

Details

Citation

Delaney L & Lades LK (2017) Present Bias and Everyday Self-Control Failures: A Day Reconstruction ±¬ÁϳԹÏÍø. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 30 (5), pp. 1157-1167. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.2031

Abstract
Everyday life is full of self-control problems. The economist's favorite explanation for self-control problems is present bias. This paper tests whether experimentally elicited present bias predicts self-control problems in everyday life. We measure present bias by using a standard incentivized delay discounting task and everyday self-control by using the day reconstruction method (DRM). Because this is the first study to measure everyday self-control by using the DRM, we also validate the method by showing that its data replicate key results from the seminal Everyday Temptation ±¬ÁϳԹÏÍø. We find that present bias does not predict everyday self-control. This points to a distinction between decreasing impatience (as measured in delay discounting tasks) and visceral influences (as occurring in everyday life) as determinants of self-control problems. We argue that decision making research can benefit from the DRM as a cost-effective tool that complements lab and field experiments to better understand economic preference measures and their correlates in everyday life decision making.

Keywords
day reconstruction method; subjective preferences; self-control; present bias; time preferences

Journal
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making: Volume 30, Issue 5

StatusPublished
FundersScottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE)
Publication date31/12/2017
Publication date online22/08/2017
Date accepted by journal27/06/2017
URL
PublisherWiley-Blackwell
ISSN0894-3257
eISSN1099-0771

People (1)

Professor Leonhard Lades

Professor Leonhard Lades

Professor in Economics, Economics