Furthermore, the rate of discounting of the delayed interaction increased as the “quality” of the social target increased. ( 2012) demonstrated discounting for delayed face-to-face conversations across one of four qualitatively different social targets. Similarly, research by Lawyer, Williams, Prihodova, Rollins, and Lester ( 2010) suggested that the value of sexual encounters decreases also as a product of increasing delay to availability.

In congruence with findings for nonsocial commodities, participants in this study reported a greater willingness to accept the more immediate relationship as the delay to the longer relationship increased. Tayler, Arantes, and Grace ( 2009) asked participants to choose between socially, sexually, and emotionally fulfilling relationships either for an immediately available brief interaction or for a delayed, extended period of interaction. Several studies have provided empirical support for the discounting of hypothetical delayed social interactions. The discounting of delayed social interaction may also be at play when one chooses to send a text (a short, immediate interaction) while driving, rather than waiting until arriving at the destination to engage in a longer social interaction. While the duration of the upcoming visit remains fixed (one week), the influence of this outcome on your behavior increases as the delay to its occurrence decreases. However, the excitement for this upcoming visit is likely to mount as the arrival of the friend approaches. This news elicits a certain amount of excitement. To illustrate this, consider receiving the news that a good friend from out of town will be arriving in one month for a one-week visit. As happens for tangible commodities, interactions set to occur in the future are perceived as being less valuable than if they were to occur more immediately (Charlton, Gossett, & Charlton, 2012).

While a number of commodities have been shown to be hyperbolically discounted, one class of outcomes has only recently received attention from discounting researchers: delayed social interactions. For example, larger outcomes are discounted less steeply than are smaller outcomes (the magnitude effect Green, Myerson, & McFadden, 1997) financial gains are discounted less steeply than losses (the sign effect Baker, Johnson, & Bickel, 2003) and, of the most direct relevance to the present study, different outcomes are discounted at different rates (the commodity effect Charlton & Fantino, 2008). In addition to the influence of individual differences, the degree to which delay affects the value of future outcomes (i.e., the discount rate) varies as a function of contextual variables. Temporal discounting has been shown to correlate with real-world contexts such as substance dependence (Ainslie, 2001 Bickel & Johnson, 2003 Bickel & Marsch, 2001), impulse control (Critchfield & Kollins, 2001 Petry, 2001a Raineri & Rachlin, 1993), pathological gambling (Dixon, Marley, & Jacobs, 2003 Petry, 2001b), and risky choice behavior (O’Donoghue & Rabin, 2001). Temporal (or delay) discounting is a process that describes the decrease in the reinforcing value of an outcome as a function of the delay until its receipt/occurrence (Critchfield & Kollins, 2001). Similar to previous findings for nonsocial outcomes, the hyperbolic-shaped models provide a fit to the data superior to that of the exponential model. The results from the present study suggest that, for 93 participants, the same equations (exponential, hyperbolic, and hyperboloid) used to describe the discounting of nonsocial commodities also describe the relation between delay and the value of social interaction. For the present study, we used standard binary-choice discounting procedures to explore the function that most accurately describes the change in value of delayed social interactions. Despite the broad list of outcomes that are hyperbolically discounted, one class of outcomes has only recently received attention: social interactions. Furthermore, this hyperbolic shape has important theoretical implications. The hyperbolic-shaped function not only describes the shape of discounting for monetary outcomes, but also for other tangibles, such as alcohol, candy, CDs, erotica, cigarettes, cocaine, books, and DVDs. The temporal discounting literature has demonstrated that the loss in value for delayed outcomes is most accurately modeled using a hyperbolic discounting equation.

Graphpad prism 5 hyperbolic fit