Abstract: Standard economic theory assumes that a temporal discounting process occurs when people choose between outcomes occurring at different times in an intertemporal choice. According to the temporal discounting process, people should prefer to lose or experience unpleasant experiences later rather than sooner, which shows a positive discounting. However, immediate negative events are generally preferred to delayed negative events, which is called negative discounting phenomenon. Loewenstein (1987) assume that the negative anticipated emotions of future events make people prefer the immediate negative events, which lead to the negative discounting phenomenon. In this paper, we tried to examine whether there is a self-other discrepancy in the negative discounting phenomenon. In Experiment 1, we investigated the effect of decision role on the negative discounting phenomenon through the time preference with respect to when the negative events happened. We constructed ten intertemporal choice situations based on six kinds of negative events in daily life and asked the participants to choose the time when they would like the negative events to happen. In the SELF-condition, the participants chose for themselves and in the OTHER-condition, the participants chose for a stranger. The results showed that the participants preferred the negative events happened earlier when deciding for self than for others in all the ten intertemporal choice situations (difference significant or marginal significant in seven situations). In Experiment 2, we investigated the effect of decision role on the negative discounting phenomenon through the discounting rate. In this experiment, we applied the choice-titration task in Hardisty, Appelt, & Weber (2013) to compute the discounting rate when the participants deciding for themselves versus others. The participants were asked to read a passage which informed them that they had to pay tax ￥100 to the government immediately and they were also be offered another option of paying a different amount one year from now. The participants then were offered a series of choices between a fixed immediate amount ￥100 and a varying later amount (￥20 to ￥180). The results showed that the average discounting rate in the SELF-condition was a negative value, whereas the average discounting rate in the OTHER-condition was a positive one. There was a significant difference in the discounting rates between these two decision conditions. The overall results suggest that people are more likely to exhibit the negative discounting phenomenon when deciding for themselves than deciding for others. We suspect that, people may be more likely to generate negative anticipated emotions towards the delayed negative events when deciding for themselves and thus, the negative discounting phenomenon is detected. In turn, the findings in this paper, in a way, support the negative anticipated emotions towards the delayed negative events as an explanation for the negative discounting phenomenon. This paper extended the theoretical researches of intertemporal choice and shed some light on the mechanism of intertemporal choice in the loss domain. Furthermore, the findings in this paper also add evidences to the self-other discrepancy in decision making. Future studies are required to explore the mechanism behind the self-other decision gap.

Key words: the negative discounting phenomenon, negative anticipated emotions, emotion involvement, decision for self, decision for others

摘要： 负折扣现象作为一种违背时间折扣假定的现象越来越多地引起研究者关注。本文通过两种指标考察了为自己决策和为他人决策在负折扣现象上的差异。实验1运用二择一选择范式考察人们在为自己决策和为他人决策时对于何时发生负性事件的时间偏好。结果发现，相比较于为他人决策，为自己决策时被试更倾向于选择早些发生负性事件，即更容易产生负折扣现象。实验2运用测量时间折扣率的经典范式考察了人们在为自己决策和为他人决策时的时间折扣率。结果发现，为自己决策时比为他人决策时的时间折扣率更小，更容易出现负折扣率。总体结果表明，为自己决策比为他人决策更容易出现负折扣现象。从情绪卷入的角度看，我们推测，为自己决策时由于更多的预期负性情绪卷入，从而导致更容易产生负折扣现象。

关键词: 负折扣现象, 预期负性情绪, 情绪卷入, 为自己决策, 为他人决策