People tend to focus on today rather than think about what tomorrow might bring. This is called present bias or hyperbolic discounting.
We prefer to enjoy things now rather than wait to enjoy them in the future. We want to have our cake and eat it now – not ‘tomorrow’! We put off doing things that are difficult or dull (I’ll start my diet on Monday…) in favour of more immediately enjoyable activities (…and enjoy that chocolate brownie right now).
But why do we do this?
Laura Carstensen, Professor in Public Policy at Stanford University notes that we are simply not built to cope with thinking about the future:
“Humans are wired to live in the present, not plan for the future. Our evolutionary survival hinged on our adroitness in dealing with the problems of the here and now, not our ability to stock-pile resources and make plans for some vague distant future we might never enjoy. If anything, biology tells us to eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”
Take this example – imagine you were offered:
- $100 today or
- $105 tomorrow
What would you choose? Most people would take $100 today.
In contrast, what would you choose if you were offered:
- $100 in 3 months or
- $105 in 3 months and 1 day?
In this case most people will take $105 and wait the extra day. 3 months away from now is a blur in their minds and an extra day’s delay makes no difference. Compare what people prefer now to what they prefer in the future and their choices are clearly inconsistent.
Even though the above example is extremely simple, our tendency to inconsistently discount the future in favour of today is fundamental to the mental battles we have with ourselves daily.
American economist Thomas Schelling describes these battles as being fought by two mind sets within the same person – rather like having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other:
“People behave sometimes as if they had two selves, one who wants clean lungs and long life and another who adores tobacco, or one who wants a lean body and another who wants dessert, or one who yearns to improve himself by reading Adam Smith on self-command and another who would rather watch an old movie on television. The two are in continual contest for control.”
Discounting the future illustrated
Here’s some familiar-sounding lines you’ll typically hear from people who sometimes discount the future:
- Next month, I’ll quit smoking.
- Next week, I’ll catch up on the required reading for my course.
- Tomorrow morning, I’ll wake up early and exercise.
- After Christmas, I’ll start eating better.
- Next weekend, I’ll send in this tax rebate form.
- Next month, I’ll start saving for retirement.
- And finally – Da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo. (Give me chastity and continence—but not yet.)—Saint Augustine of Hippo.
One new present bias behaviour we’ve seen in the Covid-19 pandemic affected world of 2020 is ‘pre-lockdown parties’ and putting off reducing close contact with people for tomorrow, to still be able to enjoy today. Yet many experts argue this defeats the object of the restrictions due to lags in transmission and exponential growth – the sooner we reduce transmission risk the less the virus will spread.
We can try to reduce this effect by using tools such as pre-commitment devices by binding ourselves to a future choice. This helps people to visualise the future by making different scenarios more salient, or by changing people’s behaviour through environmental design to make the present less tempting. We can also try to strengthen our self-control with practice over time, or by building strong habits which mean we no longer have to exercise self-control.
It’s almost impossible to cut this tendency completely. However, being aware of it – making us what behavioural scientists call ‘sophisticated present biased’ – can help us to manage it better.
So, what does this all mean?
Any future activity or decision could be difficult to get people to pay attention to; to do so, you’ll need to work harder. Utilising some of the techniques to dial down present bias can help people to focus on the future more, as well as help to reduce instances of procrastination.
In terms of research, these techniques might help encourage respondents to complete their tasks in a more timely fashion. Furthermore, being aware of a tendency to overvalue the present has important implications for any organisation that is attempting to encourage behaviour where the rewards are felt in the future and the present action is less than desirable; e.g. encouraging healthier eating, discouraging smoking, prompting savings, reducing debt, etc.
NEXT IN THE SERIES: Every three weeks The Behavioural Architects will put another cognitive bias or behavioural economics concept under the spotlight. Our next article features the Default Bias.
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