Cited by 135Decision-Making and Behavioral EconomicsNeural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesPsychological and Temporal Perspectives Research

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 225 of the 225 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 203 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

Behavioral trainings and manipulations to reduce delay discounting: A systematic review

Open access
Scholten, Hanneke, Scheres, Anouk, de Water, Erik, Graf, Uta, Granic, Isabela, Luijten, Maartje·2019·Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

Abstract

In everyday decision-making, individuals make trade-offs between short-term and long-term benefits or costs. Depending on many factors, individuals may choose to wait for larger delayed reward, yet in other situations they may prefer the smaller, immediate reward. In addition to within-subject variation in the short-term versus long-term reward trade-off, there are also interindividual differences in delay discounting (DD), which have been shown to be quite stable. The extent to which individuals discount the value of delayed rewards turns out to be associated with important health and disorder-related outcomes: the more discounting, the more unhealthy or problematic choices. This has led to the hypothesis that DD can be conceptualized as trans-disease process. The current systematic review presents an overview of behavioral trainings and manipulations that have been developed to reduce DD in human participants aged 12 years or older. Manipulation studies mostly contain one session and measure DD directly after the manipulation. Training studies add a multiple session training component that is not per se related to DD, in between two DD task measurements. Ninety-eight studies (151 experiments) were identified that tested behavioral trainings and manipulations to decrease DD. Overall, results indicated that DD can be decreased, showing that DD is profoundly context dependent and changeable. Most promising avenues to pursue in future research seem to be acceptance-based/mindfulness-based trainings, and even more so manipulations involving a future orientation. Limitations and recommendations are discussed to identify the mechanistic processes that allow for changes in discount rate and behavior accordingly.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

This systematic review of 98 studies (151 experiments) found that delay discounting (DD) can be reduced by behavioral trainings and manipulations, with manipulations showing much stronger success rates than trainings. The most promising avenues were acceptance-based/mindfulness-based trainings and, especially, future-oriented manipulations such as episodic future thinking and connectivity to future self.

Key findings

  • Across the review, 119 of 98? Wait, text says “majority of published studies (n = 119; 79%) were able to reduce DD,” but only 98 studies were included; this appears to refer to experiments or is inconsistent in the paper. More clearly: 114 of 132 manipulation experiments (86%) reduced DD, whereas only 5 of 19 training experiments (26%) did so.
  • The most effective manipulation categories were future-oriented: episodic future thinking reduced DD in 20 of 24 experiments (83%), and connectivity to future self reduced DD in 10 of 11 experiments (91%).
  • Acceptance-based/mindfulness-based trainings were the most promising training category: four studies, two found significant DD decreases and two found mixed results (food DD decreased, money DD did not).
  • Among experiments with secondary behavioral outcomes, all 7 training experiments with such outcomes found expected positive behavioral effects; EFT studies also reported reductions in smoking, caloric intake, and hypothetical alcohol purchase.

Methods

  • Systematic review following PRISMA; searches in PubMed, PsychInfo, and Web of Science yielded 8,969 hits, 1,520 duplicates removed, 7,449 unique references, plus 8 from reference lists; 178 full texts screened, yielding 98 included studies.
  • Inclusion criteria: human participants aged 12+; monetary DD outcome; behavioral training or manipulation aimed at decreasing DD; self-directed choices; sample size >10; published 1990–April 2017 in English peer-reviewed journals.
  • Studies were categorized as trainings (19 studies, 19 experiments) or manipulations (79 studies, 132 experiments); manipulations were grouped into future, social factors, emotion, and framing categories. No meta-analysis or effect-size computation was performed.

Limitations

  • Stated: wide variability in trainings/manipulations complicates comparison; publication bias could not be formally checked; most included studies did not report effect sizes or statistics allowing effect-size calculation.
  • Stated: many studies lacked proper control conditions, did not directly compare experimental and control conditions, were poorly powered, or used different DD assessment methods; only two experiments included participants younger than 18, and many relied on healthy college student samples.
  • Evident from the text: the categorization of manipulations into future, social, emotion, and framing is described by the authors as “purely subjective”; demand characteristics may inflate effects, especially for EFT and future-self manipulations; publication bias is likely more prevalent in manipulation studies than training studies.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3758/s13423-019-01629-2

Cites

225 of 225 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

0 of 203 cited sources checked · 0 supported · 0 flagged

Show all 167 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 94
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 38
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 3
115 of 115
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The division of manipulations into four main categories is subjective.

    “Please note that this division is purely subjective, and some studies combine multiple manipulation categories.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    More knowledge of money management increases the salience of future rewards and makes those more concrete.

    “based on the idea that more knowledge of money management increases the salience of future rewards and makes those more concrete.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    A higher connectedness to the future self implies a greater willingness to defer benefits to the future self.

    “based on the notion that a higher connectedness to the future (self) implies a greater willingness to defer benefits to the future self.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The more detailed information is available, the more a future event can be construed in a concrete way, corresponding to a low-level construal.

    “The rationale behind this hypothesis is that the more detailed information is available, the more a future event can be construed in a concrete way, corresponding to a low-level construal.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    High delay discounting rates are associated with unhealthy behaviors.

    “Though high DD rates are associated with unhealthy behaviors”
5 of 5

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

  • Bundling summary overstates the suggested condition's effect

    Minor

    The text says discounting decreased in the suggested condition in both cited studies. Table 2 reports no change for that condition in Hofmeyr et al.; only its forced condition decreased DD among smokers.

  • Wrong Yi study cited for the group-choice manipulation

    Minor

    The social-context discussion attributes a group-choice manipulation to Yi et al. (2008), but Table 1 describes that study as a smoking/CM training. Table 2 attributes the choosing-for-a-group experiment to Yi et al. (2010).

  • Yi et al. comparison conflicts with the table's interaction result

    Minor

    The text says the CM and control conditions were not directly compared statistically for DD. Table 1 nevertheless reports a condition-by-time interaction for their DD results, which entails a comparison between conditions.

3 of 3

Citations

Cites

Items 201–225 of 225

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Ainslie, G. (1992). Picoeconomics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  2. Rachlin, H. (1989). Judgment, decision and choice. New York: W. H. Freeman.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

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Metadata

Authors
Scholten, H., Scheres, A., de Water, E., Graf, U., Granic, I., & Luijten, M.
Affiliations
Radboud University Nijmegen (NL)
Corresponding author
Scholten, Hanneke
Venue
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
Published
2019-07-03
Volume
26
Issue
6
Pages
1803-1849
ISSN
  • 1069-9384 (ISSN-L)
  • 1531-5320
OpenAlex
W2954189525
Cited by
135
References
225
Citations by year
2026: 13 · 2025: 26 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 1
FWCI
1.61
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion)
  • Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
Radboud University
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 › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychological and Temporal Perspectives Research
Keywords
delay discounting, behavioral training, controlling behavior, delayed rewards, intertemporal choice, mindfulness training, future orientation, individual differences, context sensitivity
MeSH terms
Cognitive Remediation, Humans, Reward, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Mindfulness, Delay Discounting

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