Heidrun Schultz

It's about time: Specific and unspecific effects of episodic future thinking on farsighted decisions.

Humans tend to discount the value of delayed rewards. As a consequence, they forego larger long-term benefits (e.g., €29 in 91 days) in favor of smaller short-term gains (e.g., €20 now). Episodic future thinking (EFT) attenuates such delay discounting. That is, people are more likely to choose a larger but delayed rewa...