Delayed rewards are less valuable than immediate rewards. This well-established finding has focused almost entirely on individual outcomes. However, are delayed rewards similarly discounted if they are shared by a group? The current article reports on three experiments exploring the effect of group context on delay discounting. Results indicate that discount rates of individual and group rewards were highly correlated, but that respondents were more willing to wait (decreased discounting) for shared outcomes than for individual outcomes. An explanatory model is proposed suggesting that decreased discount rates in group contexts may be due to the way the effects of both delay and social discounting are combined. That is, in a group context, a person values both a future reward (discounted by delay) and a present reward to another person (discounted by the social distance between them). The results are explained by a combined discount function containing a delay factor and a factor representing the social distance between the decision maker and group members. Practical implications of the fact that shared consequences can increase individual self-control are also discussed.

中文翻译：

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现在为我，稍后为我们？群体背景对时间贴现的影响

延迟奖励不如即时奖励有价值。这一行之有效的发现几乎完全集中在个人结果上。但是，如果延迟奖励是由一组共享的，是否同样打折？当前文章报告了三个实验，探索了群体环境对延迟贴现的影响。结果表明，个人和团体奖励的贴现率高度相关，但与个人结果相比，受访者更愿意等待（减少贴现）共享结果。提出了一个解释模型，表明群体环境中贴现率的降低可能是由于延迟和社会贴现的影响相结合的方式。也就是说，在群体环境中，一个人既重视未来的奖励（因延迟而减少）和对另一个人的当前奖励（因他们之间的社会距离而减少）。结果由包含延迟因子和代表决策者与组成员之间社会距离的因子的组合折扣函数解释。还讨论了共同后果可以增加个人自我控制这一事实的实际意义。