Probabilistic discounting of hypothetical monetary gains: University students differ in how they discount “won” and “owed” money

The present study tested whether participants would discount “won” money differently than they would “owed” money in a probability-discounting task. Participants discounted $1000 or $100,000 that they had won in a sweepstakes or that was owed to them using the multiple-choice (Experiment 1) or fill-in-the-blank (Experiment 2) method of collecting discounting data. When using area under the curve as the dependent measure, results from both experiments showed that participants discounted won money more than owed money and discounted $100,000 more than $1000. These results did not necessarily reflect what was observed at the extreme probabilities, however. The present results replicate those found with delay discounting of won and owed money. However, they question the idea that these differences are the outcome of owed money being more subjectively valuable than won money. Rates of discounting, be it delay or probability, appear to be at least partially determined by the outcome itself. Such a finding potentially complicates the issue of how probability discounting is related to delay discounting.

► Discounting is a subjective change in the value of a delayed or uncertain outcome.
► Participants discounted monetary outcomes that had been won or were owed.
► Won money was discounted more than owed money, but not at high probabilities.
► Framing affects rates of discounting.
► Type of outcome may affect discounting independent of the magnitude effect.