De exekutiva förmågorna möjliggör avancerade kognitiva processer. Prokrastination är vår benägenhet att fördröja en planerad handling trots att fördröjningen förvärrar situationen. Denna uppsats har utforskat om det finns ett konceptuellt samband mellan konstrukten. Orsaken till prokrastinaton tros hänga samman med bristande självreglering som är sammanlänkat med de exekutiva förmågorna. Det finns ett glapp mellan intentionen och handlandet hos de som prokrastinerar. Impulsivitet tycks ligga bakom denna skillnad. Prokrastinerande individer väljer det njutningsfulla i stunden framför långsiktiga fördelar. Indikationer tyder på att de hämmande mekanismerna inom de exekutiva förmågorna inverkar i reglerandet av impulsiviteten. Individer med högre förmåga att hämma impulser är bättre på att följa sina intentioner. Direkta studier mellan de exekutiva förmågorna och prokrastination behövs för att stärka kausala samband.

As humans we have a remarkable capacity to sacrifice for the future, and an equally remarkable capacity to shortchange it, leaving our future selves to pay the price. The research in this dissertation suggests that sacrifice for the future (patience) may be governed by the same rules that govern sacrifice for others (altruism). Studies found that (1) patience was positively correlated with altruism, and (2) patience was positively correlated with empathic accuracy, a measure that predicted altruism. A third set of studies found that (3) a pervasive influence on altruism--group membership--also influenced patience. Participants who expected to switch groups in the future felt less connected to their future selves and left more than twice as much unpleasant work to the future. This research provides converging support for the hypothesis that common factors promote altruism and patience, suggesting that we may be able to draw on the decades of research studying kindness toward others to promote a little more kindness toward our future selves. / Psychology

No abstract available. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Mercantile Law / unrestricted

Why is it difficult to save for a pension or maintain a healthy diet? Choosing between options that have future or delayed consequences presents a challenge for a decision maker. When faced with such intertemporal choices the tendency to favour choices with immediate or short term outcomes, otherwise known as delay discounting, can lead to suboptimal consequences in the long-term. However, the mechanisms underlying the devaluation of future outcomes are poorly understood. This is due to the lack of a consistent framework for the representation of delays and delayed outcomes. One perspective is to represent delays as uncertainty. However, current conceptions of uncertainty are limited, by and large, to the dimension of probability, and are therefore inadequate. This thesis adopts a delay discounting model and emphasises different types of uncertainties within choice. Unifying these components, a framework that considers intertemporal choice as decision making under uncertainty is proposed. A series of behavioural and electrophysiological studies is presented to demonstrate that: it is the perceived uncertainty about 'if' and 'when' outcomes occur that contributes to behavioural discounting (chapters 2 and 3); the perception and evaluation of 'what' is delayed is underlined by emotional processes (chapter 4); and that generally, uncertainties about 'if' and 'what' outcomes differentially characterise risky and impulsive choices (chapter 5), and can be distinguished in terms of their informational qualities (chapter 6). Collectively, these findings present a deconstruction of uncertainty into components of 'if', 'what' and 'when', that could be mapped to delayed outcomes. I discuss them within the context of judgement and decision making, individual differences, and neural aspects of reward processing. These results allow me to argue that 1) all decision making is a process of information availability; 2) behaviour is motivated to reduce uncertainty; 3) choice is the manifestation of acquired information gathered from a decision-maker's internal and/or external environment. In conclusion, this thesis demonstrates that decision making under uncertainty can be qualified beyond a single dimension of probability; and that uncertainty can be characterised as a state of incomplete information about 'if' 'what' and 'when' outcomes will occur. Accordingly, intertemporal and risky choices can be accommodated within a single framework, subject to the same cognitive and neural processes. Consequently, this framework allows for the design of behavioural interventions that specifically target reducing uncertainties of 'if', 'what' or 'when'.

Brain injuries are one of the leading causes of disability and death globally, and prevalence numbers indicate an increase of injuries each year. Brain injuries significantly burden the individual afflicted; the effects of brain injuries are felt across families and relationships, and society at large. Brain injuries are often complicated by co-morbid socially significant health disorders, from mental health to financial and challenging behavior (i.e., aggression). The presence of these can severely limit access to community and rehabilitative opportunities. Some common characteristics underlying these socially significant problems are executive dysfunction and impulsivity. The literature broadly points to the role of executive functioning in impulsivity, indicating that when these processes are inadequate, impulsivity is more severe. To complicate, impulsivity research within brain injury is not broad. Additionally, little consensus exists on the concept and how stable this behavior is, and whether impulsivity can be improved. An area of impulsivity research, delay discounting, has gained increased attention from behavior scientists in the past 30 years because of its pragmatic approach to impulsivity. Delay discounting is a trans-disease process and various clinical populations discount delayed rewards at a high rate. The few studies that exist indicate that brain-injured people also discount at a higher rate compared to controls. Furthermore, high delay discounting have well-established connections with other socially significant health disorders. Due to the lack of breadth of the discounting literature in brain injury research, one exciting area is temporal stability and clinical interventions to decrease discounting. In a set of two studies, the aim was to expand the current knowledge on temporal stability, connections to socially significant behavior and deficits, and the effects on clinical interventions to reduce discounting. Study 1 examined the relationship between responses on discounting tasks at two different times and the relationship between discounting and measures of challenging behavior and executive functions. This study indicates that discounting was stable, that challenging behavior is related to higher rates of discounting yet did not find a relationship with executive functioning. Study 2 investigated the effects of computerized cognitive training and mindfulness training on discounting, executive functioning, and challenging behavior in multiple baseline research design across three participants. Results indicated that a small and transient improvement in delay discounting was observed for two of three participants during the computerized cognitive training. The improvement increased once the mindfulness training was introduced for the same two participants. Improvements were observed on executive functioning measures for all participants, and limited improvements were observed from measures of challenging behavior. Together these findings add to the body of literature on delay discounting and brain injury by demonstrating temporal stability and to the literature on clinical interventions to reduce high rates of delay discounting

Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) is a psychological intervention that combines acceptance and mindfulness approaches with behavior change strategies to increase psychological flexibility, defined as present moment awareness despite unpleasant private events, and behaving based on personal values. Obesity is a socially significant problem effecting duration and quality of life. Quantifying differences between high and low exercise groups and evaluating interventions that affect exercise value represent an avenue to understand obesity and change behavior. This study assessed the effects of a brief ACT exercise on the demand for general and sport-specific exercise and delay discounting rates of four commodities (i.e., money, food, general exercise, and sport-specific exercise) in Division I athletes (n=78) and non-athletes (n=78) from the same university. Statistically significant main effects for general exercise were observed between athletes compared to non-athletes for intensity, elasticity, and breakpoint. Differences in demand for sport-specific exercise between athletes and non-athletes were observed across all behavioral economic indices. The ACT intervention did not alter the demand for general or sport-specific exercise. General and sport-specific exercise were valued similarly between individual participants in each group. In the delay discounting task, ACT significantly decreased degree of discounting of all four commodities (increased the area under the curve) in both athletes and non-athletes. No differences were observed between athletes and non-athletes for any of the four commodities, indicating that athletes and non-athletes discounted these commodities similarly. Results from the demand task provide initial support for the extension of hypothetical purchase tasks to exercise behavior. which would offer a standardized method to quantify exercise value efficiently. Results from the discounting task provide initial evidence indicating that ACT may be effective in reducing discounting rates across commodities. Given that steep discounting rates are considered to play an important causal role in maladaptive behaviors related to obesity, evidence of a therapeutic intervention with the potential to produce longer-lasting change in decision-making is encouraging.

No description available.

Previous research on college students has found that cooperation in iterated prisoner's dilemma game is correlated with preference for delayed rewards in studies of temporal discounting. The present study attempted to replicate this finding in a drug-dependent population. Thirty-one individuals who intranasally abuse prescription opioids participated in temporal discounting and iterated prisoner's dilemma game procedures during intake for a treatment study. Rate of temporal discounting was determined for each participant at two hypothetical reward magnitudes, as well as proportion of cooperation in a 60-trial iterated prisoner's dilemma game versus a tit-for-tat strategy. Cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma game and temporal discounting rates were significantly correlated in the predicted direction: individuals who preferred delayed rewards in the temporal discounting task were more likely to cooperate in the prisoner's dilemma game.

The purpose of the current study was to examine an ACT based intervention and its effects on problem behaviors and impulsivity rates displayed by individuals diagnosed with Mild Intellectual Disabilities. In a multiple baseline design with 2 experiments, 6 participants completed the 27-item monetary choice questionnaire weekly throughout the 9-week study. Impulsivity rates were calculated, and behavior data was collected throughout each phase of the study. During the intervention phase of the study brief ACT sessions were conducted 3 times a week during one-on-one sessions with each participant. Sessions were held face-to-face or via phone call. A stacked multiple baseline design was computed, and the data was inputted, indicating that ACT may effectively reduce problem behaviors in participants diagnosed with Mild Intellectual Disabilities. The current study suggests that ACT interventions have no effect on impulsivity. Implications of the findings and future research are discussed. Keywords: ACT, Impulsivity, Delay Discounting, Intellectual Disability, Monetary Choice Questionnaire

During decision-making, an individual must weigh the value of the outcomes involved while also considering the amount of time until the outcomes will occur. Discounting occurs when a smaller, immediately available reward is chosen over a larger, more delayed reward. Discounting rates are likely related to working memory capacity, because working memory stores and processes the value of the outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between working memory, temporal discounting, and the decision to engage in physical activity. The results showed that working memory capacity was related to the physical activity rates. Discounting rates from a money task and a health task were not related to activity rates. However, in the subsample of individuals who reported that their primary motive to exercise was health, working memory and discounting rates from the money task were both statistically significant predictors of physical activity.