Information Processing Characteristics And Plasticity Of College Students' Intertemporal Choice

Intertemporal choice is the process by which people make decisions about what and how much to do at various points in time,when choices at one time influence the possibilities available at other points in time.These choices are influenced by the relative value people assign to two or more payoffs at different points in time.On the other hand,self-control resource is limited.When the energy for mental activity is low,self-control is typically impaired,which would be considered a state of ego depletion.Thus,ego depletion refers to the idea that self-control draws upon a limited pool of mental resources that can be used up.Studies on ego depletion and intertemporal choice show that during the process of intertemporal choice ego depletion can lead people to make impulsive decisions.Intertemporal choice is a crucial kind of decision behavior that is closely related to people's daily life.Investigating people's intertemporal choice behavior is not only of great scientific value,but is also a relevant matter to human survival and development.Nowadays,facing the current temptation,like getting a little money right now.college students tend to give up thinking about long-term interests.In order to help them make favorable decisions in intertemporal choice,it is necessary to find certain methods to intervene college students' intertemporal choice behavior.Based on previous research,this study will deeply explore the following questions:(1)How to balance the intertemporal choice for college students in the difficult and easy situation of gains and losses.(2)To study the plasticity of intertemporal choice of college students from the perspective of information processing,and to seek for the appropriate methods to improve the intertemporal choice of college students in the real decision-making environment.(3)To investigate the influence of ego depletion on college students' intertemporal choice,and to explore the effective intervention methods of self-control failure in intertemporal choice.First,in experiment 1,based on the perspective of decision-making process.nonobtrusive eye movement technology was used to systematically investigate the information processing characteristics of college students' intertemporal choice.54 college students were asked to finish the intertemporal choice tasks under the situation of gain and loss.The results showed that when the tasks were difficult,participants paid more attention to the information of the outcome dimension;while they paid more attention to the information of the time dimension when the tasks were easy.At the same time,compared with the gain situations,participants in the loss situations performed more option-based eye movements,that is,more comparison between the options.Moreover,participants paid more attention to the outcome dimension when they chose the immediate option.In addition,in the case of selecting immediate options and delayed options,participants all performed more comparison between options,which meant the integrated search strategy was adoptedIn experiment 2,to explore whether using different information search strategies can affect intertemporal choice preference,157 college students were guided to use different information search strategies in real decision-making by questionnaires with two kinds of information presentation.The results showed that compared with those using the integrated search strategy.participants using the comparative search strategy preferred the delay option.In other words,comparative search strategies made individuals to "take a long view".The results also showed that in the gain situation,by doing some tradeoff between the money attribute and the time attribute and comparing the differences between the two options between the two attributes,the comparison information strategy could urge individuals to choose the large and late delay options and thus develop their patienceIn experiment 3.to explore the effect of ego depletion on intertemporal choice of college students,49 undergraduate participants were tested on their intertemporal choice preferences under different ego depletion states.The results showed that compared with those in the low ego depletion group,participants in the high ego depletion group preferred immediate options and performed short-sighted decision-making behavior.On the basis of experiment 2 and experiment 3.experiment 4 was aimed to explore the influence of information search strategy on intertemporal choice preference of college students in the state of ego depletion.46 undergraduate participants completed the intertemporal choice tasks using different types of information search strategies The results showed that after using different information search strategies in the decision-making process,there is no significant difference of the intertemporal choice preference of participants in high and low ego depletion groups.In addition,when using integrated search strategy,participants in high and low ego depletion group all preferred the immediate option.While using comparative search strategy,they preferred the delayed option.In summary,during the intertemporal choice process,college students generally adopt integrated search strategy for information acquisition.Manipulating college students to use comparative search strategy by providing different information presentation can make them prefer delay options.College students,in high or low ego depletion states,can be intervened in impulsive decision-making caused by ego depletion by changing their information search strategy.