self-control

Immediacy of reinforcement

Reinforcement is so effective when it's immediate that it causes a lot of people to act on problems due to the immediacy of wanting something

Studying self control

Choice between small immediate reward and a larger delayed reward

Impulsivity

choosing the small immediate (sooner) reinforcer

Self-control

choosing the larger, delayed reinforcer

Smaller, more immediate reinforcer

Larger, more delayed reinforcer

Delay discount

You discount something the further away it is.

• The delay decreases the value of reinforcement

Ainslie-Rachlin Principle

Reinforcement value changes as the delay between making a choice and obtaining the reinforcer changes

• Reinforcement value decreases as the delay to that reinforcer increases

Delay Discounting

discount the amount of reinforcement; the farther something is in the future, the less powerful, valuable it is. Even if it is the same amount, the farther away it is, the less powerful it becomes.

Relationship between delay discounting and health

The prospect of a good future is not enough to compete with getting the feeling of a drug right now, immediately

• Treatment based on behavioral approaches is significantly better than any other studies because of how it's conceptualized

The farther away something is

the less value it is

You change how you make your decisions depending on WHEN you make your decisions. 

If you wait to make your decisions until the short-term one is right in front of you, you might change your decision to get the immediate one, which is a preference reversal

Compare preference a week before the party to preference Friday afternoon

The Ainslie-Rachlin principle is

preference reversal

Implications

Walter Mischel's marshmallow experiment

Impulsive Choice

Delay discounting (i.e., impulsive choice)

• Extensively studied with various populations, commodities, environments

Drug users have been shown to discount the value of delayed rewards more steeply than non-drug-using controls

Heroin, cocaine, alcohol, methylphenidate (Ritalin), nicotine

• They don’t see the health issues at the moment

• Don’t see the consequences that will counteract the immediate reinforcement of having that drug right now

Smokers discount delayed rewards more rapidly than never, and ex-smokers

• Smokers make more “impulsive” choices

• You can change your discounting

impulsive choice and smoking

• Your discounting can be affected over time

• You are less impulsive if it's farther away

• More impulsive if it's closer to you

Teaching tolerance to delayed rienforcers

Schweitzer & Sulzer-azaroff (1988)

Commitment responses

Rachlin & Green (1972)

Provide immediate reinforcers for “healthy choice” (contingency management)

Dallery & Raiff (2006)

Sometimes, delay can be a big factor in setting the occasion for problem behavior

we want to avoid that form happening

Self-Control and Commitment

When choices occur well in advance of outcomes, self-control choices are more likely

• When choices occur in close proximity to the outcomes, impulsive choices are more likely

Rachlin & Green

• Choosing green gives you a choice later.

• Choosing red provides only the delayed, larger option later.

When choices are made in advance, we are self-controlled

Commitment Response

Choosing now NOT to choose later