Walk into any fast-food restaurant, and you can watch a small crowd of ordinary people doing something that is utterly irrational: eating junky, excess-weight-inviting food likely to leave them feeling bad about their bodies and open to a host of serious ills. We literally line up to trade our health and self-image for a few minutes of pleasant mouth feel and belly comfort—because the latter is right here, right now, whereas the former is months, years and decades away.

This foolish exchange reflects a glitch in our brains that may wreak more havoc in our lives and in society than any other. Known as temporal discounting, it is our tendency to view small rewards available now as more desirable than even much bigger payoffs down the road. Scientists think this trait may have been programmed into us by evolution at a time when the environment, with its many threats to our survival, favored those who grabbed whatever they could whenever they could get it.

This article was originally published with the title Time-Warping Temptations.

8 Comments

1. 1. usersuz 03:27 PM 3/23/13

   C.J. Bryan's approach to controlling impulsivity by conceiving of one's future self as a third person is something I've been doing for years. If that future self is "you," then "you" can choose to give up her future welfare for "your" hot fudge sundae now. But she's not "you." We don't step into the same river twice, and your future self is someone different, someone who needs to be taken care of. So do her a kindness. Protect her from foolishness, guard her health, her finances. When I need to pay my car insurance in six months, I don't assume the extra money will just turn up when the bill comes. I pro-rate the total and make a monthly entry in my checkbook for that amount which I label "FC" for fake check. When the bill comes, that future woman re-deposits all my FC's and pays it painlessly. Take care of that future self; she's worth it!

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2. 2. julia smith 01:45 PM 3/29/13

   'Scientists think this trait may have been programmed into us by evolution at a time..' For god's sake, the food is real and it smells; the future is just imagination. It´s the other way around: evolution has not yet developed in us the capacity to trust our imagination more than our senses (but we are much better at it than any other animal).

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3. 3. cbung 03:02 PM 3/29/13

   I'm interested in "C.J. Bryan's approach to controlling impulsivity" Is this a book or something? Sounds like something I've been looking for. Can you refer me to the source?

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4. 4. cbung 04:14 PM 3/29/13

   I'm interested in "C.J. Bryan's approach to controlling impulsivity" Is this a book or something? Sounds like something I've been looking for. Can you refer me to the source?

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5. 5. cbung in reply to usersuz 04:14 PM 3/29/13

   I'm interested in "C.J. Bryan's approach to controlling impulsivity" Is this a book or something? Sounds like something I've been looking for. Can you refer me to the source?

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6. 6. kevinhunter 08:38 AM 3/30/13

   Perhaps this behavior is only observed in rich market based societies... I'm sure a predictive algorithm exists :-) GDP + leisure time / hardship + political correctness = temporal discounting...

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7. 7. hanmeng 09:52 AM 3/30/13

   Ourselves? I suspect you really mean, "How can we stop other people from doing what we disapprove of?"

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8. 8. bucketofsquid 06:06 PM 4/10/13

   I don't know about my future self but my past self is a real jerk. If I had a time machine I'd go back and punch me in the face.

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