Taking time to be healthy: Predicting health behaviors with delay discounting and time perspective

Delay discounting, a willingness to postpone receiving an immediate reward in order to gain additional benefits in the future, is conceptually related to time perspective, the cognitive processes which filter temporal information and influence behavior. One measure of delay discounting (Money Choice Questionnaire) and two measures of time perspective (Consideration of Future Consequences Scale and Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory) were compared in this study to each other and to self-reported health behaviors with 467 undergraduates. Delay discounting and time perspective significantly improved the incremental prediction of tobacco, alcohol, and drug use, exercise frequency, eating breakfast, wearing a safety belt, estimated longevity, health concerns, and sociosexual orientation above and beyond sex and Big Five traits. These results further suggest that delay discounting and time perspective are indeed similar but also non-redundant constructs that are not reducible to global personality.