The Impact Of Payment Methods On Loss-based Intertemporal Choice

With the progress of society,the field of payment has also undergone tremendous changes,taking Chinese mainland as an example,almost everyone can now complete various consumption behaviors with just a cell phone,and therefore,research on payment methods is also gradually gaining attention.In real life,everyone will face a variety of choices,this kind of decision is as small as buying a bag of salt in life,to buying a house and other large expenses,people prefer to buy immediately in cash or pay on credit? This kind of behavior,which requires trade-offs between present and future time points,is known as intertemporal choice.The academic field has paid much attention to different payment methods and intertemporal choice,and some previous relevant studies have found that people prefer to delay waiting when facing a gain by using cash payment than mobile payment,but the relationship between payment method and intertemporal choice in the loss scenario is still relatively lacking.Therefore,this study combines questionnaires and behavioral experiments to explore the influence of payment methods on loss-based intertemporal choice and its psychological mechanisms.The paper progresses gradually through three studies: Study 1 uses a one-way within-subjects experimental design(payment methods: cash payment,mobile payment)with a questionnaire to initially explore the relationship between payment methods and loss-based intertemporal choice when people make decisions for themselves;Study 2,based on the results of Study 1,further explores the relationship between payment methods and loss-based intertemporal choice under different social relationships,with2(payment method: cash payment,mobile payment)× 3(social distance: self,close friend,stranger Zhengli)mixed experimental design,which supports the results of Study 1.Study 3 is a laboratory study,using a one-way between-subjects experimental design(payment methods: cash payment,mobile payment)to further validate and explore the impact of different payment methods on intertemporal choice under loss scenarios and the mechanisms influencing the perception of payment pain.The main findings of the paper are as follows:(1)Under the condition of loss scenario,subjects who used cash payment were more inclined to immediate loss than those who used mobile payment;(2)Under the condition of loss scenario,social distance changes individuals’ payments to prefer deferred losses,regardless of the payment type used;(3)Subjects’ payment pain was significantly higher when using cash payments than when using mobile payments.The use of different payment methods is the mediating variable of payment pain to influence the intertemporal choice of individuals in loss scenarios.