Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Discounting Delayed and Probabilistic Rewards

Abstract

In order to assess the cross-cultural generality of monetary decision-making processes, American, Chinese, and Japanese graduate students were studied on two tasks: In the delay discounting task, participants made choices between immediate and delayed hypothetical monetary rewards; in the probability discounting task, participants made choices between certain and probabilistic rewards. Some notable cross-cultural similarities were observed. Two-parameter hyperbola-like functions described both delay and probability discounting for all three groups. Moreover, for all three groups the rate at which delayed rewards were discounted was higher for the smaller amount whereas the rate at which probabilistic rewards were discounted was lower for the smaller amount. Some group differences were also observed. As measured by the area under the empirical discounting curve, the Americans and Chinese discounted delayed rewards more steeply than the Japanese. In addition, the Americans discounted probabilistic rewards the most, whereas the Chinese discounted probabilistic rewards the least. Despite these differences, the similarities in the form of the discounting functions and in the effects of amount suggest that there are fundamental commonalities among the three groups with respect to the processes underlying their evaluation of delayed and probabilistic rewards.