Throughout the climate literature, it is predicted that the continual production of carbon dioxide will produce consequences that will impact life on Earth- and likely not in a positive way.

If behavior is a function of consequences, why have we not seen a substantial change in human behavior related to greenhouse gas emissions? We have a term for it, it is called delay discounting.

Delay discounting refers to the decline in subjective value of stimuli as the delay interval to access those stimuli increases.  For example, would you like 1 dollar now or 5 dollars in 5 minutes?  Most of us would probably wait 5 minutes to get the larger sum of money.  What if the delivery of the 5 dollars was delayed even further to next week, next month, or even next year?  At some point, preference shifts toward the more immediate, smaller reward.

Delay discounting represents the process underlying sustainability issues: our behavior is more likely to be influenced by the immediate consequences, rather than long-term, more removed, consequences.

Hirsh, Costello, and Fiqua (2015) outlined an example of delay discounting in their study.  They examined water conservation as it relates to sustainable behavior over time.  If one were to engage in a water conservation strategy (e.g., shortening shower duration), the behavior change would be initially discomforting but the relative discomfort would lessen over time.  This is compared to the increasing discomfort of being forced to ration water (which is a predicted consequence of climate change).  The relative discomfort of rationing water would continue to increase as access to fresh water decreases. 

The authors suggest that when there is a large delay between unsustainable behavior and long-term negative consequences, it’s likely to have little effect on behavior when more immediate consequences control incompatible behavior.  

Put more simply, human behavior is influenced more by immediate consequences.

Understanding delay discounting helps us understand why so little has been done to combat climate change. It’s easy to push off this collective issue because engaging in sustainable behavior typically doesn’t result in immediate reinforcement for individual behavior.  For example, transportation continues to be one of the biggest contributors to climate change but many of us continue to commute alone.  Driving is efficient, comfortable, and low cost compared to the limited alternatives.

Fortunately, our field has much to offer in terms of presenting solutions to climate change. We’ll get to that in our next post….

But first- we’d love to hear some of your ideas. How can we shift the focus towards delayed consequences as opposed to the more immediate ones?

Please leave your comments below.

References

Hirsh, J. L., Costello, M. S., & Fuqua, R.W. (2015). Analysis of delay discounting as a psychological measure of sustainable behavior. Behavior and Social Issues, 24, 187-202.