Uncertainty about future payoffs makes impatience rational

Behav Brain Sci. 2017 Jan:40:e330. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X17001005.

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).

Publication types

  • Comment

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Biological Evolution
  • Climate*
  • Forecasting
  • Hominidae*
  • Humans
  • Uncertainty