Delay discounting paradigms have gained widespread popularity across clinical research. Given the prevalence in the field, researchers have set lofty expectations for the importance of delay discounting as a key transdiagnostic process and a ‘core’ process underlying specific domains of dysfunction (e.g. addiction). We believe delay discounting has been prematurely reified as, in and of itself, a core process underlying psychological dysfunction, despite significant concerns with the construct validity of discounting rates. Specifically, high delay discounting rates are only modestly related to measures of psychological dysfunction and therefore are not ‘core’ to these more complex behavioral problems. Furthermore, discounting rates do not appear to be specifically related to any disorder(s) or dimension(s) of psychopathology. This raises fundamental concerns about the utility of discounting, if the measure is only loosely associated with most forms of psychopathology. This stands in striking contrast to claims that discounting can serve as a ‘marker’ for specific disorders, despite never demonstrating adequate sensitivity or specificity for any disorder that we are aware of. Finally, empirical evidence does not support the generalizability of discounting rates to other decisions made either in the lab or in the real-world, and therefore discounting rates cannot and should not serve as a summary measure of an individual's decision-making patterns. We provide recommendations for improving future delay discounting research, but also strongly encourage researchers to consider whether the empirical evidence supports the field's hyper-focus on discounting.

中文翻译：

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延迟贴现的问题：对当前实践和临床应用的严格审查


延迟折扣范式在临床研究中广泛流行。鉴于该领域的普遍性，研究人员对延迟折扣作为关键的跨诊断过程和特定功能障碍领域（例如成瘾）的“核心”过程的重要性抱有很高的期望。我们认为，尽管人们对贴现率的结构有效性存在重大担忧，但延迟贴现本身已被过早地具体化为潜在心理功能障碍的核心过程。具体来说，高延迟贴现率与心理功能障碍的测量只有适度的相关，因此不是这些更复杂的行为问题的“核心”。此外，折扣率似乎并不具体来说与精神病理学的任何障碍或维度相关。如果贴现的衡量标准与大多数形式的精神病理学只是松散地相关，那么这就引发了人们对贴现效用的根本担忧。这与折扣可以作为特定疾病的“标记”的说法形成鲜明对比，尽管从未对我们所知的任何疾病表现出足够的敏感性或特异性。最后，经验证据并不支持贴现率对实验室或现实世界中做出的其他决策的普遍适用性，因此贴现率不能也不应该作为个人决策模式的概括衡量标准。我们为改进未来的延迟贴现研究提供建议，但也强烈鼓励研究人员考虑经验证据是否支持该领域对贴现的高度关注。