Uncertainty about future payoffs makes impatience rational
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Updated: Feb 15, 2026

Experimental Research Examining How People Can Cope with Uncertainty Through Soft Haptic Sensations
Published on: September 16, 2015
1Department of Earth System Science,Stanford University,Stanford,CA 94305-4216.jhj1@stanford.eduhttps://profiles.stanford.edu/james-jones.
Abstract:
Uncertainty (i.e., variable payoffs with unknown probabilities) brings together a number of features of the authors' argument. It leads to present bias, even for completely rational agents with time-consistent preferences. As an evolutionary product of Pleistocene climate instability, humans possess broad adaptations to environmental uncertainty, giving rise to key features of the behavioral constellation of deprivation (BCD).
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