Intertemporal trade-offs are inherent in most choices, and are especially salient in environmental decisions. Although psychology, anthropology, and economics each offer unique insights and findings on the mental and social processes underlying the evaluation of future events, each discipline...

In three studies, participants made choices between hypothetical financial, environmental, and health gains and losses that took effect either immediately or with a delay of 1 or 10 years. In all three domains, choices indicated that gains were discounted more than losses. There were no...

Time preferences for financial and air quality gains and losses at delays of up to 50 years were elicited using three different methods: matching, fixed-sequence choice titration, and a dynamic "multiple staircase" choice method. Results indicate that the choice-based methods are prone to...

Consumers are influenced, not only by prices, but also by how those prices are labelled, and by the policies that undergird those prices. Steps to limit carbon emissions, including putting a “price” or a “limit” on emissions, can be undertaken in a variety of ways, and these policies are...

Intertemporal tradeoffs are ubiquitous in decision making, yet preferences for current versus future losses are rarely explored in empirical research. Whereas rational-economic theory posits that neither outcome sign (gains vs. losses) nor outcome magnitude (small vs. large) should affect delay...

In seven studies of naturally occurring, “real-world” emotional events, people demonstrated an immediacy bias in social-emotional comparisons, perceiving their own current or recent emotional reactions as more intense compared with others’ emotional reactions to the same events. The events...