Citation

Griskevicius V, Tybur JM, Delton AW, Robertson TE. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 2011; 100(6): 1015-1026.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, American Psychological Association)

DOI

10.1037/a0022403

PMID

21299312

PMCID

PMC3298774

Abstract

Why do some people take risks and live for the present, whereas others avoid risks and save for the future? The evolutionary framework of life history theory predicts that preferences for risk and delay in gratification should be influenced by mortality and resource scarcity. A series of experiments examined how mortality cues influenced decisions involving risk preference (e.g., $10 for sure vs. 50% chance of $20) and temporal discounting (e.g., $5 now vs. $10 later). The effect of mortality depended critically on whether people grew up in a relatively resource-scarce or resource-plentiful environment. For individuals who grew up relatively poor, mortality cues led them to value the present and gamble for big immediate rewards. Conversely, for individuals who grew up relatively wealthy, mortality cues led them to value the future and avoid risky gambles. Overall, mortality cues appear to propel individuals toward diverging life history strategies as a function of childhood socioeconomic status, suggesting important implications for how environmental factors influence economic decisions and risky behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

Language: en