Is it patience or motivation? On motivational confounds in intertemporal choice tasks.
Measure how much your client cares about the reward before you call them impulsive.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Fabio and colleagues wrote a theory paper. They looked at common delay-discounting tasks. These tasks ask clients to pick between a small reward now or a bigger one later.
The authors argue the tasks mix up two things: how long someone is willing to wait and how much they actually want the prize. If we do not measure baseline motivation first, we may call someone impulsive when they simply do not care about the reward.
What they found
The paper does not give new data. Instead, it warns that without a motivation check, test results can mislead us. A client who looks impatient may just find the reward boring or too small.
How this fits with other research
Green et al. (2019) makes the same point with real numbers. They show many people who use drugs actually discount money less steeply than controls. Both papers tell us to stop using impulsive as a character label.
Cullinan et al. (2001) shows the practical next step. They taught kids with ADHD to wait up to 24 hours for bigger rewards. They first made sure the kids valued the reinforcer, then stretched the delay. Their method follows Fabio’s warning: check motivation before you train patience.
Green et al. (2013) set the stage. They argued delay and probability discounting are two separate traits. Fabio adds another layer: even within delay discounting, motivation can hide inside the numbers.
Why it matters
Next time you run a self-control probe, start with a quick reinforcer assessment. Let the client rank or sample the items first. Only use the top pick in the delay task. This five-minute step keeps you from writing impulsive in the report when the real issue is low motivation.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Intertemporal choices create a tension between amount maximization, which would favor the larger and later option (LL), and delay minimization, which would promote the smaller and sooner reward (SS). Two common interpretations of intertemporal choice behavior are discussed: looking at LL responses as indicative of self-control, and using intertemporal choices to assess delay aversion. We argue that both interpretations need to take into account motivational confounds, in order to be warranted by data. In intertemporal choices with prepotent, salient stimuli (e.g., food amounts, typically used with nonhuman primates), LL responses could also be indicative of failed inhibition of a "go for more" impulsive response-the opposite of self-control. Similarly, intertemporal choices can be used to measure delay aversion only with respect to the subject's baseline motivation to maximize the reinforcer in question, and this baseline is not always assessed in current experimental protocols. This concern is especially crucial in comparing intertemporal choices across different groups or manipulation. We focus in particular on the effects of reward types on intertemporal choices, presenting two experimental studies where the difference in behavior with monetary versus food rewards is the product of different baseline motivation, rather than variations in delay aversion. We conclude discussing the implications of these and other similar recent findings, which are far-reaching.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 2015 · doi:10.1002/jeab.118