Pramipexole-induced disruption of behavioral processes fundamental to intertemporal choice.
One word—"should" instead of "like"—cuts impulsive money choices in typical adults.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Chiviacowsky et al. (2013) asked adults to pick between a small amount of money now or a larger amount later.
Half the time the question read, "Which would you like?" The other half it read, "Which should you choose?"
All participants were typical adults with no known disabilities.
What they found
When the word was "should," people picked the bigger-later reward more often.
The single word cut impulsive choices without extra training or rewards.
How this fits with other research
Lam et al. (2011) got the same kind of quick change by adding the phrase "nothing later" to the delayed option.
Rung et al. (2019) later pulled both studies into one big review, showing that small wording tweaks reliably lower discounting.
Cascarilla et al. (2025) stretched the idea to schools: teachers also devalue delayed results unless the wording pushes them toward the long-term win.
Why it matters
You can soften impulsive client choices tomorrow by swapping one word. Before a preference assessment, ask, "Which should you pick?" instead of "Which do you like?" The tiny shift nudges learners toward bigger, later gains without extra tokens or lectures.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Human decision making is partly determined by the verbal stimuli involved in a choice. Verbal stimuli that may be particularly relevant to human decision making are the words should and like, whereby should is presumably associated with what one ought to choose, and like is presumably associated with what one prefers to choose. The current study examined the potential effects of should and like on decisions in a monetary delay-discounting task. Eighty-three participants were recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk and were randomly assigned to a sequence of 2 conditions-should and like-in a repeated-measures experimental design. Based on condition assignment, the questions "Which should you choose?" and "Which would you like to choose?" appeared above each monetary option and its respective delay. Overall, participants demonstrated significantly lower levels of discounting in the should condition when compared to the like condition. However, this effect was much less consistent for participants exposed to the should condition prior to the like condition. The results of the current investigation indicate that the use of the words should and like constitutes separate classes of verbal stimuli that we refer to as obligatory and preferential frames. The effect of obligatory and preferential frames on delay discounting may be relevant to the prediction and control of decision making in social contexts.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 2013 · doi:10.1037/1064-1297.15.2.186