On Four Types of Devaluation of Outcomes Due to Their Costs: Delay, Probability, Effort, and Social Discounting

Discounting refers to decreases in the subjective value of an outcome with increases in some attribute of that outcome. The attributes most commonly studied are delay and probability, with far less research on effort and social discounting. Although these attributes all represent costs that reduce subjective value, it is as yet unclear how the extent to which they do so is related at the individual level. Accordingly, the present study examined the degree to which individual participants discounted hypothetical monetary rewards on each of four discounting tasks in which the delay, probability, effort, and number of people with whom the money was to be shared were manipulated. At the group level, larger amounts were discounted less steeply than smaller amounts when delay and effort were varied, whereas larger amounts were discounted more steeply when probability and number of people were varied. At the individual level, the correlational pattern was examined using exploratory factor analysis. A six-factor structure (with separate factors for delay and effort, and two factors each for social and probability discounting) described the relations among indifference points. At a more molar level, a two-factor structure, which corresponded to the direction of the observed magnitude effects, described the relations among area-under-the-curve measures of discounting in the eight conditions resulting from crossing two monetary amounts with the four cost factors. We conclude that despite sharing some similarities, individual and group differences in discounting involving the different types of costs reflect mostly separate processes and traits.