The Hidden-Zero Effect: Representing a Single Choice as an Extended Sequence Reduces Impulsive Choice
Open accessAbstract
Splurge on a vacation, or save for retirement? Sleep in late, or get up to exercise? The ability to resist a tempting, immediately available reward in order to obtain a larger delayed reward is the hallmark of self-control, and predicts important life outcomes such as academic achievement (Duckworth & Seligman, 2005) and social adjustment (Mischel & Ayduk, 2004). Unfortunately, immediate rewards are often difficult to resist. One key factor that makes them so appealing is temporal discounting – the tendency to consider events as less important if they occur in the distant future, rather than in the near future (Ainslie, 2001). This tendency tempts us to a choose small immediate reward over a larger delayed reward, simply because the first is immediately available – a choice that can greatly sabotage the attainment of our long-term goals. To study temporal discounting, researchers (e.g. Estle, Green, Myerson, & Holt, 2007) typically have participants choose between smaller-sooner rewards and larger-later rewards (e.g., “Would you prefer [A] $5 today, OR [B] $6.20 in 26 days?”). Decision-makers commonly view such situations as a choice between a good alternative soon and a better alternative later. However, what is not mentioned explicitly in such situations is the fact that choosing to receive one alternative also means choosing not to receive the other. In other words, decision-makers are implicitly encouraged to choose between one-shot events, rather than between sequences of events, in which choosing an immediate reward also means choosing to receive nothing later, and vice versa (e.g., “Would you prefer [A] $5 today and $0 in 26 days, OR [B] $0 today and $6.20 in 26 days?”). People’s choices are heavily influenced by ways in which the alternatives are framed, even when the different frames are logically equivalent (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981). Given that people prefer sequences that improve over time (Ariely & Zauberman, 2003; Frederick, Loewenstein, & O'Donoghue, 2002), we hypothesized that representing each alternative as a sequence of outcomes, by explicitly referring to the hidden zero in each alternative, would increase participants’ willingness to choose larger delayed rewards over smaller immediate rewards, as they would prefer to choose sequences that appear to improve over time.
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Explicit-zero framing significantly reduces the extent to which a larger-later reward is discounted, with medium to large effect sizes.
“When this explicit-zero framing is used, the extent to which the LLR is discounted is significantly reduced (Magen, Dweck, & Gross, 2008; Radu, Yi, Bickel, Gross, & McClure, 2011; Wu & He, 2012) with medium to large effect sizes”
From Changing Delay Discounting and Impulsive Choice: Implications for Addictions, Prevention, and Human Health (2019) · cites this paper as Magen et al., 2008
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Cites
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- Authors
- Magen, E., Dweck, C. S., & Gross, J. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- Stanford University (US)
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2008-07
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 648-649
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- PMC
- PMC4108245
- OpenAlex
- W2141833802
- Cited by
- 157
- References
- 11
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 2.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH058147, MH 58147)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Keywords
- delay discounting, delayed rewards, self-control, framing effects, choice framing
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Choice Behavior, Female, Humans, Disruptive, Impulse Control, and Conduct Disorders, Male, Surveys and Questionnaires, Reward
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