Developmental trajectories of delay discounting from childhood to young adulthood: longitudinal associations and test-retest reliability

Episodic future thinking and delay of gratification in children: Is imagining reward pay-off helpful?

Previous studies have failed to show an effect of episodic future thinking (EFT) on children's delay of gratification (DoG), contrasting strikingly with adult findings. Recent findings from a sample of 8-11-year-old children by Canning et al. (J. Exp. Child Psychol., 228, 2023, 105618) indicate that EFT cueing is not effective compared to a no-cue control even when it is reward related. Canning et al. suggest children's DoG performance, unlike that of adults, may be negatively affected by the cognitive load of cueing, but this leaves unexplained why EFT reward-related cueing produced significantly better performance than cueing that did not involve EFT in their study. The current study attempted to further delineate the importance of linking future thinking cues to rewards. A reward-related EFT condition was compared to a reward-unrelated EFT condition and a no-cue control on a delay choice task. No significant differences were observed between the three conditions. This suggests that even reward-related future thinking is ineffective at improving children's delayed gratification. Further research is needed to determine why children struggle to benefit from EFT cues.

Is waiting for rewards good for you? No association between impulsive choice, psychopathology, and functional outcomes in a large cohort sample

Background

A stronger preference for immediate rewards has been reported in individuals with ADHD and other disorders. However, the consistency of the associations between this preference and psychiatric conditions as well as functional outcomes have been questioned. Research on its association with longitudinal outcomes is scarce.

Methods

The current study used data on a choice delay task (CDT) from a school-based cohort of Brazilian children with those at higher risk for psychiatric disorders over-sampled (n = 1917). The sample included typically developing children (n = 1379), those with ADHD (n = 213), and other disorders. The frequency of the trials where children chose a larger later reward versus a smaller sooner reward was compared for those with ADHD and typically developing children. Cross-sectionally and longitudinally, the study also evaluated whether children's preference for larger delayed rewards at baseline predicted the presence of psychiatric disorders and functional life outcomes (academic performance, alcohol use, early pregnancy, criminal conviction, BMI).

Results

Children with ADHD and their typically developing peers performed similarly on the CDT. Their baseline task performance was not related to psychiatric conditions or life outcomes.

Conclusions

The current results raise questions regarding the use of the CDT with diverse populations and whether a preference for larger delayed rewards is predictive of positive long-term outcomes as widely assumed.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of test-retest reliability and stability of delay and probability discounting

In this meta-analysis, we describe a benchmark value of delay and probability discounting reliability and stability that might be used to (a) evaluate the meaningfulness of clinically achieved changes in discounting and (b) support the role of discounting as a valid and enduring measure of intertemporal choice. We examined test-retest reliability, stability effect sizes (dz; Cohen, 1992), and relevant moderators across 30 publications comprising 39 independent samples and 262 measures of discounting, identified via a systematic review of PsychInfo, PubMed, and Google Scholar databases. We calculated omnibus effect-size estimates and evaluated the role of proposed moderators using a robust variance estimation meta-regression method. The meta-regression output reflected modest test-retest reliability, r = .670, p < .001, 95% CI [.618, .716]. Discounting was most reliable when measured in the context of temporal constraints, in adult respondents, when using money as a medium, and when reassessed within 1 month. Testing also suggested acceptable stability via nonsignificant and small changes in effect magnitude over time, dz = 0.048, p = .31, 95% CI [-0.051, 0.146]. Clinicians and researchers seeking to measure discounting can consider the contexts when reliability is maximized for specific cases.

Posttraumatic stress and delay discounting: a meta-analytic review

Delay discounting-the extent to which individuals show a preference for smaller immediate rewards over larger delayed rewards-has been proposed as a transdiagnostic neurocognitive process across mental health conditions, but its examination in relation to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is comparatively recent. To assess the aggregated evidence for elevated delay discounting in relation to posttraumatic stress, we conducted a meta-analysis on existing empirical literature. Bibliographic searches identified 209 candidate articles, of which 13 articles with 14 independent effect sizes were eligible for meta-analysis, reflecting a combined sample size of N = 6897. Individual study designs included case-control (e.g. examination of differences in delay discounting between individuals with and without PTSD) and continuous association studies (e.g. relationship between posttraumatic stress symptom severity and delay discounting). In a combined analysis of all studies, the overall relationship was a small but statistically significant positive association between posttraumatic stress and delay discounting (r = .135, p < .0001). The same relationship was statistically significant for continuous association studies (r = .092, p = .027) and case-control designs (r = .179, p < .001). Evidence of publication bias was minimal. The included studies were limited in that many did not concurrently incorporate other psychiatric conditions in the analyses, leaving the specificity of the relationship to posttraumatic stress less clear. Nonetheless, these findings are broadly consistent with previous meta-analyses of delayed reward discounting in relation to other mental health conditions and provide further evidence for the transdiagnostic utility of this construct.

Delay discounting and family history of psychopathology in children ages 9-11

Delay discounting is a tendency to devalue delayed rewards compared to immediate rewards. Evidence suggests that steeper delay discounting is associated with psychiatric disorders across diagnostic categories, but it is unclear whether steeper delay discounting is a risk factor for these disorders. We examined whether children at higher risk for psychiatric disorders, based on family history, would demonstrate steeper delay discounting behavior using data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, a nationally representative sample of 11,878 children. We looked at associations between delay discounting behavior and family history of alcohol problems, drug problems, depression, mania, schizophrenia, and suicidal behavior. Correlations between family history of psychopathology and delay discounting behavior were small, ranging from ρ = - 0.02 to 0.04. In mixed effects models controlled for sociodemographic factors, family history of psychopathology was not associated with steeper delay discounting behavior. Sociodemographic factors played a larger role in predicting delay discounting behavior than family history of psychopathology. These results do not support the hypothesis that children with greater risk for psychopathology display steeper delay discounting behavior.