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Who can wait for the future? A personality perspective

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Mahalingam, V 
Kosinski, M 
Kogan, A 

Abstract

Who can wait for larger, delayed rewards rather than smaller, immediate ones? Delay discounting (DD) measures the rate at which subjective value of an outcome decreases as the length of time to obtaining it increases. Previous work has shown that greater DD predicts negative academic, social, and health outcomes. Yet, little is known about who is likely to engage in greater or less DD. Taking a personality perspective, in a large sample (N = 5,888), we found that greater DD was predicted by low openness and conscientiousness and higher extraversion and neuroticism. Smaller amounts were also discounted more than larger amounts; furthermore, amount magnified the effects of openness and neuroticism on DD. Our findings show that personality is one predictor of individual differences in DD-an important implication for intervention approaches targeted at DD. © The Author(s) 2013.

Description

Keywords

decision making, individual differences, hierarchical linear modeling/multilevel modeling, personality, social network, delay discounting, time preference

Journal Title

Social Psychological and Personality Science

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1948-5506
1948-5514

Volume Title

5

Publisher

Sage
Sponsorship
Vaishali Mahalingam was supported by a ‘Cambridge Nehru Bursary’ from the Nehru Trust for Cambridge University. David Stillwell was supported by an ESRC studentship (ES/F021801/1). He also receives revenue as an owner of the ‘My Personality’ website. Michal Kosinski received funding from Boeing Corporation.