JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS 2019, 52, 408–421 NUMBER 2 (SPRING)

The influence of contrived motivating operations on social

discounting: Relative economic hardship affects choice
JORDAN BELISLE
MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY

MARK R. DIXON AND KYLE E. ROWSEY

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY

Thirty-six participants were given three social discounting surveys, and each survey was preceded
by one of three contrived hypothetical scenarios. In each scenario, the participant was asked to
consider situations in which either the participant (SELF), a hypothetical other (OTHER), or
both the participant and the hypothetical other (BOTH) were experiencing economic hardship
(i.e., needed money to avoid a negative outcome). Results replicate previous research suggesting
that the probability of participants foregoing the money decreased across social distance in the
BOTH and OTHER conditions; however, no discounting was observed for median responses
in the SELF condition. In addition, the highest area under the curve and lowest s values were
associated with the OTHER condition, and the inverse results were observed for the SELF con-
dition. Taken together, these results suggest that relative economic hardship may act as a moti-
vating operation affecting social discounting with the potential for further translational utility.
Key words: altruism, hardship, motivating operations, social discounting

Choice in behavior analysis occurs when an
organism engages in one response in the con-
text of competing response alternatives (Baum,
1979, 2013; Baum & Rachlin, 1969).
Described in this way, all behavior is an
instance of choice (Baum, 2016). Interpreting
behavior in a choice paradigm confers the
advantage of mathematical descriptions of
behavior–environment interactions (Odum,
2011a). Discounting represents a special case of
choice, in which the subjective value of money
decreases from its nominal value across a mea-
surable dimension, such as time (Green &
Special thanks to Dr. Jason M. Hirst for his assistance
with the conceptual and statistical analyses presented in
the current investigation. This work was completed in
partial fulfillment of the first author’s Masters of Science
Degree in Behavior Analysis and Therapy in the Rehabili-
tation Department at Southern Illinois University,
Carbondale.
Correspondence concerning this article should be
addressed to Mark R. Dixon, Rehabilitation Institute,
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, 62901.
Email: mdixon@siu.edu
doi: 10.1002/jaba.540
© 2019 Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
408
Myerson, 2004). Delay discounting has been
extensively researched (Koffarnus, Jarmolowicz,
Mueller, & Bickel, 2013; Odum, 2011b), and
specifically describes individuals’ preferences for
smaller sooner rewards over larger later rewards
(Ainslie, 1975; Logue, 1988).
In studies of delay discounting, the value of
money has been shown to decay across succes-
sively greater amounts of time (e.g., Green &
Myerson, 2004), where the time discount func-
tion is described by the following hyperbolic
equation (originally proposed by Mazur, 1987):
V
v= ð1Þ
ð1 + kD Þ
In this equation, v is the discounted value of
the reward, V is the undiscounted value of the
reward, D is the delay, and k is a constant
representing the degree of discounting. Typi-
cally, delay discounting is evaluated through
self-report. Participants are asked to make
hypothetical monetary choices between a smal-
ler sooner monetary option and a larger later
 SOCIAL DISCOUNTING IN CONTEXT
monetary option (e.g., would you rather have
$15 now, or $75 in 30 days?). High levels of
discounting are represented visually by steep
discounting curves and statistically by large
k values (Green & Myerson, 2004). Delay dis-
counting research has been described as one of
the greatest successes in behavior analysis
(Critchfield, 2011; Odum, 2011a) because rela-
tionships are described mathematically, provid-
ing a common currency with other fields (Vyse,
2013), and because myopic impulsive choice
contributes to several pressing social problems
(Rachlin, 2004; Scharff, 2009; Vyse, 2013).
Choices have consequences for the behaving
organism, but may also have competing conse-
quences for other organisms (Locey, Safin, &
Rachlin, 2013b). For example, one may choose
to forego food so that another can eat, or one
may choose to engage in additional work so
that another can relax. Although foregoing a
sum of money could be considered suboptimal
(i.e., leads to less access to a commodity for the
individual), there are countless examples of sit-
uations in which such choices allow for greater
access to the commodity for the entire group.
Parfit (1984) offers commuting as an example,
in which each person goes faster if they drive,
but not as fast as one would if every person
used public transit due to overall decreases in
traffic. Similar examples can be generated in
describing polluting and overfishing
(Rachlin & Locey, 2011). Thus, the competi-
tion between choices that are better for the
individual at the expense of the society and vice
versa has been referred to as “the tragedy of the
commons” (Hardin, 1968); yet, instances in
which individuals choose to forego a commod-
ity for the benefit of others are several, such as
when a hungry parent foregoes dinner to feed
his or her children, or when a young adult
works overtime to pay medical expenses for an
ailing parent. Translational research efforts may
be suggestive of environmental factors that con-
tribute to these seemingly “altruistic” choices.
409
Social discounting is an extension on the dis-
counting literature that refers to the diminish-
ing probability of choosing to forego a
commodity for the benefit of another across
social distance (Jones & Rachlin, 2006;
Rachlin & Jones, 2007). That is, when a par-
ticipant is given the option to keep a sum of
money for her or himself or to forego the
money to share with another person, choosing
to forego the money is more probable when
the other is socially close and less probable
when the other is socially distant (Jones &
Rachlin, 2006). Rachlin and Raineri (1992)
proposed a similar hyperbolic equation to that
used in delay discounting, defined as:
V
v= ð2Þ
ð1 + sN Þ
In this equation, v is the discounted value of
the reward, V is the undiscounted value of the
reward, N is the social distance, and s is a con-
stant representing the degree of discounting.
Like delay discounting, social discounting is
most often evaluated using self-report measures.
Participants are asked to imagine that they have
generated a list of 100 people, in which the first
person is the closest person to them and the
hundredth person is the farthest person from
them (i.e., social distance). Participants are then
asked a series of questions in which they can
keep an amount of money for themselves
(e.g., $10), or forego an amount of money so
that a fixed amount is provided to the hypo-
thetical other (e.g., $75), which is framed in
the context of social distance from the partici-
pant. The hyperbolic nature of social discount-
ing choices was first supported in an initial
survey conducted by Jones and Rachlin (2006),
in which the researchers demonstrated that the
hyperbolic discounting function provided a
strong fit in describing the decisions of the
participants.
Steep social discounting may be problematic
at a group level. If all members of a society are
410 JORDAN BELISLE et al.
unwilling to forego a smaller commodity for
themselves to provide a larger commodity to
others, regardless of social distance, the aggre-
gate commodity afforded the society is lessened.
By contrast, if all members of the society chose
to forego the smaller commodity for themselves
to provide the larger commodity to others, the
overall commodity afforded the society is
greater for all members including the choosing
organism. Parfit’s (1984) examples can be
applied, in that electing to use the local transit
benefits all members of the society, most of
whom are unfamiliar to the individuals making
the choice. Similarly, polluting less and con-
serving energy are two choices that could have
implications for global warming, yet benefits
may not be observed for several generations.
Although discounting has been well docu-
mented in the behavior analytic literature
(e.g., Estle, Green, Myerson, & Holt, 2006;
Ohmura, Takahashi, & Kitamura, 2005), trans-
lational research over the past decade has begun
to examine how contextual environmental vari-
ables may influence discounting (e.g., Dixon,
Buono, & Belisle, 2016; Dixon, Jacobs, &
Sanders, 2006). By understanding how the envi-
ronment influences discounting, resultant sub-
optimal choices may be brought under
contextual control. In an initial evaluation of
how contrived motivating operations may influ-
ence discounting, Dixon et al. (2016) evaluated
how hypothetical economic hardship influenced
the choices of individuals with a gambling disor-
der on a standard delay-discounting task. Dixon
et al. presented participants with three delay-
discounting questionnaires, each differing in
terms of hypothetical scenarios that preceded
the questionnaire, in which participants were
asked to complete the survey assuming they
were earning their typical salary, half of their
typically salary, or double their typical salary.
The results suggested that when participants
were presented with the contextual scenario of
having their salary doubled, they discounted less
relative to the other two conditions.
Similar findings were produced by Bickel,
Wilson, Chen, Koffarnus, and Franck (2016),
who presented participants with hypothetical
sudden changes in future income along with a
delay-discounting task and demonstrated that
acute and abrupt income change could influ-
ence discounting of both monetary gains and
losses. Research by Ostaszewski, Green, and
Myerson (1998) further supports the potential
translational utility of isolating economic hard-
ship as a motivating operation by demonstrat-
ing that economic inflation may have
influenced the subjective value of delayed
rewards in Poland in years prior to 1994. Add-
ing a quasiexperimental element to nonexperi-
mental research, their findings suggested that
there may be a relationship between income
and discounting rates (Green, Myerson, Licht-
man, Rosen, & Fry, 1996).
At least two studies have also assessed how
contextual variables could affect social discount-
ing. The first, conducted by Rachlin and Jones
(2008), suggested that participants are less likely
to discount rewards conferred to family members
versus nonfamily members, across social dis-
tances. The second, conducted by Osi nski
(2010), demonstrated that social discounting may
be influenced by reinforcement reciprocity experi-
enced with the hypothetical other person. For
example, close family members may be more
likely to behave favorably to relatives who share
resources with them, compared to those relatives
who do not. By evaluating contextual factors sur-
rounding social discounting, these studies provide
preliminary translational evidence that such
choices may be susceptible to changes in environ-
mental conditions. Considerably more research is
needed to determine if these conditions, applied
in the context of real-world technologies, can
produce desired behavior change; however, initial
survey-based demonstrations can isolate relevant
environmental conditions to inform future tech-
nological development.
Perhaps one of the most potent contextual
variables that could influence social discounting
 SOCIAL DISCOUNTING IN CONTEXT 411

is economic hardship, as suggested by the Table 1

results of Dixon et al. (2016) and Ostaszewski Participant Demographics
et al. (1998). That is, experiencing economic
Variable n %
hardship may increase the value of any sum of
Age (years)
money, and correspondingly decrease the prob- < 20 8 22
ability of giving a larger sum of money to 20-29 26 72
another across social distances. In the special 30-39 2 6
> 39 0 0
case of social discounting, economic hardship is Sex
necessarily relative, as the economic conditions Male 8 22
Female 28 78
of the other could additionally influence the Income ($)
probability of choosing to forego the sum of < 10,000 25 69
10,000 – 19,000 6 17
money. Economic hardship experienced by the 20,000 – 29,000 5 14
other would, at least in principle, exert the > 30,000 0 0
opposite motivational effect, making foregoing
the sum of money more probable.
In the current study, we evaluated how rela- materials subsection below), and a debriefing
tive hardship affected participants’ social dis- document. Altogether, 36 (8 male, 28 female)
counting in a hypothetical choice paradigm. persons took part in the study. Participant
The contextual variable that was manipulated demographics are summarized in Table 1. All
was a hypothetical state of economic hardship participants were university students with vary-
relative to the economic hardship experienced ing levels of education at the time of the study.
by others in a concurrent choice arrangement. The mean annual income of the participants
Similar to Dixon et al. (2016), we specifically was 7,356 USD, and ranged from 0 to 25,000
evaluated whether hypothetical contextual con- USD. All participants consented to participate,
ditions would differentially affect participants’ and the Human Participants Committee at
overall rates of social discounting. The present Southern Illinois University, Carbondale,
study is translational, with the potential to approved all methods.
inform the development of technologies
designed to decrease the probability of social
discounting in society beyond the laboratory. Materials
After consenting to participate, each partici-
pant was provided with three social discounting
METHOD
surveys. At the beginning of the first survey,
Participants participants were provided a statement
Participants were recruited for the study on that read:
campus at a midwestern American university.
Requests to participate were made by the Take a moment to imagine 100 people. Per-
authors of the study by asking participants if son number 1 is the closest person to you,
family or friend, and person number 100 is
they would be willing to complete three 5-min
a distant acquaintance or someone that you
questionnaires for a research study. The do not even know. Everyone between 1 and
researchers immediately answered all participant 100 ranges from closest to furthest in terms of
questions pertaining to the study. After agree- their closeness to you. You do not have to
ing to participate, the participants were pro- physically create a list of these individuals,
vided a package that included a consent but take a moment to imagine that you have
document, three discounting surveys (see done so.
412 JORDAN BELISLE et al.
The statement provided participants with a
quantification of social distance, in which each
hypothetical person’s number represented their
relative social distance; higher numbers were
socially distal and lower numbers were socially
proximal. The social discounting surveys were
developed based on the format used by Rachlin
and Jones (2007). In this arrangement, partici-
pants were provided with several hypothetical
questions in which they could choose to either
keep a sum of money, or forego the money to
give to a hypothetical other person. Each ques-
tion took on the following form:
Would you rather…
Keep X for yourself, or give $75 to the Nth
person on your list?
X was a sum of money ranging from $85 to
$5, which was downward titrated in units of
$10 (i.e., 85, 75, 65… 5) at each social dis-
tance; N was the social distance (social dis-
tances of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 were
used in the study). Each of the surveys pre-
sented each X value for an N of 1, followed by
successively greater N values (i.e., 1, 2, 5…
100). Each survey was, therefore, composed of
63 questions and took approximately 5 min to
complete.
Each of the surveys represented a different
contextual condition intended to contrive a
motivating operation. At the top of each of the
three surveys, participants were given one of
three hypothetical scenarios (i.e., BOTH,
OTHER, or SELF). In each hypothetical sce-
nario, either the participant, the hypothetical
other person, or both, were experiencing eco-
nomic hardship, wherein receiving a sum of
hypothetical money could attenuate a poten-
tially harmful, hypothetical outcome. The
potentially harmful outcome was framed in the
context of the participant or the hypothetical
other having insufficient funds to satisfy their
rent payment the following month. This hypo-
thetical scenario was used because the
participants were recruited on a university cam-
pus and such a scenario may be likely given the
annual income of this population. The scenar-
ios were varied in terms of who was more likely
to contact harm in the absence of receiving the
hypothetical sum of money. Therefore, the
contrived motivating operation was relativistic,
as the hypothetical experience of the partici-
pant was framed in the context of the hypo-
thetical experience of the hypothetical other.
The scenarios involved placing hypothetical
economic hardship on the participant exclu-
sively (SELF), the hypothetical other exclu-
sively (OTHER), or both the participant
and the hypothetical other (BOTH). The
scenarios were:
Scenario SELF: You have just found out
that you may not have enough money to pay
rent and all of your expenses this month,
which may limit your ability to continue
your studies. You have been given an amount
of money below. You may keep this money
for yourself, or give $75 to a person on your
list. The other person has also just found out
that they certainly have enough money to pay
rent and all of their expenses this month.
Scenario OTHER: You have just found out
that you certainly have enough money to pay
rent and all of your expenses this month. You
have been given an amount of money below.
You may keep this money for yourself, or give
$75 to a person on your list. The other per-
son has also just found out that they may not
have enough money to pay rent and all of
their expenses this month, which would result
in substantial negative outcomes for them.
Scenario BOTH: You have just found out
that you may not have enough money to pay
rent and all of your expenses this month,
which may limit your ability to continue
your studies. You have been given an amount
 SOCIAL DISCOUNTING IN CONTEXT
of money below. You may keep this money
for yourself, or give $75 to a person on your
list. The other person has also just found out
that they may not have enough money to pay
rent and all of their expenses this month,
which would result in equally negative out-
comes for them.
Given a relative context provided by each of
the above scenarios, the participants completed
the discounting surveys. The presentation order
of each of the scenarios was counterbalanced
across the participants. Each of the participants
completed surveys given each of the three sce-
narios to allow for comparisons of participant
scores across each of the three relative contex-
tual conditions.
Data Analyses
Several statistical and visual analyses were
conducted both between- and within- partici-
pants. First, indifference points were deter-
mined for each participant at each of the
surveyed social distances (1, 2, 5, … 100). The
indifference point is the monetary value at
which the participant switched from keeping
the money for themselves to giving the money
to the hypothetical other person. As in the
analysis conducted by Rachlin and Jones
(2007), the indifference point was the value
between the last value where the participant
kept the money and the first value where the
participant gave the money to the hypothetical
other. For example, if the participant chose to
keep $65, and then chose to forego $55 to give
$75 to the hypothetical other, then the indiffer-
ence point was $60. Consistent with prior
research (Jones & Rachlin, 2006), if partici-
pants always keep the money for themselves at
a given social distance, then the indifference
point was given an assumed value of $1, and if
the participants always gave the money to the
hypothetical other, then the indifference point
was given an assumed value of $85. These
assumptions were made to allow for
413
mathematical interpretation and corresponding
statistical analyses.
Participants who produced more than one
switch point (i.e., alternating between keeping
or foregoing the money) were eliminated from
all analyses. A total of four (two male, two
female) participants were excluded based on this
criterion, and are not reported in Table 1. First,
hyperbolic functions were fitted to the data to
determine if decreases in subjective value across
social distance were systematic as in prior
research (e.g., Rachlin & Jones, 2007), using
Equation 2. Obtained s values were then used as
one measure of social discounting. The s values
were not reported when curves could not be
fitted to the data, which occurred when partici-
pants chose to either keep the money for each
choice across all social distances, or chose to
forego the money for each choice across all
social distances. As noted by Johnson and Bickel
(2008), when applied to delay discounting data,
R2 values are often positively and significantly
associated with the discount rate parameter.
Instead, in the current study, the appropriate-
ness of the hyperbolic equation was determined
through visual analysis of the data. Side-by-side
comparisons of obtained s values across the three
conditions for each participant are reported.
For the second set of analyses, Area Under
the Curve (AUC) values were calculated for
each participant using proportional values for
obtained indifference points and units of social
distance. To transform the x- and y-axis vari-
ables, the obtained value was divided by the
maximum possible value. Thus, proportional
subjective value was calculated by dividing the
indifference point by $75 at each social dis-
tance, and proportional social distance was cal-
culated by dividing N (social distance) by
100 (maximum social distance). All propor-
tional values ranged from 0 to 1. AUC scores
provide a metric of choice given an aggregate of
their proportional value at each social distance,
and allow for parametric analyses of choice
(Myerson, Green, & Warusawitharana, 2001)
414 JORDAN BELISLE et al.
using statistical analyses that are typical in com-
parative sciences. Although AUC does not pro-
vide a discount rate parameter (e.g., s), it does
provide a measure of discounting. The atheo-
retical nature of AUC (i.e., AUC is not reliant
on an a priori assumption about the hyperbolic
nature of a discounting curve) makes it particu-
larly appropriate in situations in which the
hyperbolic model does not describe the data
well. The proportional values at each social dis-
tance were then used to calculate AUC, using
the formula provided by Myerson, Green, and
Warusawitharana (2001):
 
ðY 1 + Y 2 Þ
AUC¼ðX 2 −X 1 Þ × ð3Þ
2
X1 and X2 are successive delays and Y 1 and Y2
are proportional values associated with the suc-
cessive delays.
Visual analyses of obtained AUC values com-
pared participant scores across the three condi-
tions, and a Friedman’s nonparametric statistical
analysis with a Geisser–Greenhouse correction
was conducted to determine if between-group
differences in AUC were statistically significant.
This analysis was used because the obtained dis-
tribution of AUC values demonstrated a substan-
tial deviation from a Gaussian distribution.
Following the Friedman’s statistical test, a Dunn’s
correction for multiple comparisons was per-
formed to determine which of the groups yielded
statistically significant differences relative to one
another in pairwise comparisons. A second set of
visual analyses were conducted by comparing par-
ticipant AUCs in each category to determine the
consistency of the results obtained in the above
analyses, as well as to determine any salient par-
ticipant differences in the obtained AUC scores.
RESULTS
Figure 1 shows the median indifference
points at each social distance across the three
90
BOTH
80
(Amount Foregone to Give $75)
OTHER
70
SELF
Indiffer ence Point
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Social Distance (N)
Figure 1. Median indifference point values across
each of the three contextual conditions. Markers indicate
median values (Y) at each social distance value (X), and
curves represent hyperbolic curve functions fitted to each
condition.
conditions. Median indifference points were
calculated at social distances of 1, 2, 5, 10,
20, 50, and 100. The data suggest that at each
social distance, the greatest indifference value
corresponded with the OTHER condition, and
for social distances of 1, 2, 5, 10, and 20, the
least indifference value corresponded with the
SELF condition. In other words, when the
hypothetical other was experiencing economic
hardship, foregoing a sum of money so that the
other could receive a fixed sum was more likely.
For the BOTH condition, the greatest indiffer-
ence points corresponded with a social distance
of 1, and decayed across successively greater
social distances. A hyperbolic curve function
fitted to the median indifference points in the
BOTH condition appeared to provide a strong
fit for the data in terms of visual analysis
(i.e., the obtained curves aligned visually with
the obtained median indifference values). Thus,
this finding corresponds with prior research on
social discounting, suggesting that the probabil-
ity of foregoing a sum of money decays across
social distance at a predictable rate. For the
OTHER condition, the median indifference
points at social distances of 1, 2, 5, and 10 were
$85, which was the greatest possible median
indifference value. Decaying indifference point
 SOCIAL DISCOUNTING IN CONTEXT
values were observed across successive social
distance values ranging from 20 to 100, and a
hyperbolic curve function fitted to the obtained
data appeared to provide a moderately strong fit
for the data. For the SELF condition, the median
indifference point was at a minimum possible
value of $1 across all social distances. This find-
ing does not replicate prior research on social dis-
counting. Although the curve appears to align
with the obtained data, the curve would be better
described by a model in which the undiscounted
value of the reward (V) is always equal to $1
(i.e., V = $1, not a hyperbolic model). It is
important to note that assumed values were used
if participants kept or gave away all money, and
in this condition, 21 of the participants kept all
money in the SELF condition.
Obtained AUC values and s scores for each
participant are summarized in Table 2, and a
visual summary of participant AUC scores
across the three contextual conditions is pro-
vided in Figure 2. For 34 of 36 participants
(94.4%), the highest AUC value corresponded
to the OTHER condition (M = 0.307, SD =
0.313), suggesting that when the hypothetical
other was in a state of economic hardship,
choosing to forego the money may have been
more likely, and this result supports the visual
analysis provided by Figure 1. Conversely, for
33 of 36 participants (91.7%), the lowest AUC
value corresponded with the SELF condition
(M = 0.092, SD = 0.195), suggesting that
when the participant was exclusively in a state
of economic hardship, he or she may have been
less likely to forego the money, which also cor-
responded with a visual analysis of Figure 1.
Bar graphs shown in Figure 2 indicate the
mean AUC values in each of the conditions,
and the dots represent individual participant
scores. Visual analysis of the SELF condition
suggests that, absent some outliers, almost all
participants had an AUC score close to 0 (i.-
e., the lowest possible AUC, value = 0.01),
suggesting that when the participants were
exclusively presented with economic hardship,
415
they were less likely to forego the money. Par-
ticipant scores in the BOTH condition suggest
that many of the participants had AUC scores
that were close to 0, and few of the participants
had AUC scores above 0.5, although there was
considerable variation in participant scores.
Visual analysis of the OTHER condition shows
that the greatest number of participants either
had an AUC of 1.0 or an AUC close to 0.0.
This outcome suggests that when others experi-
enced economic hardship, most individuals
either exclusively kept each sum of money for
themselves, or exclusively provided the fixed
amount of money to the hypothetical other, at
each social distance. A Friedman’s nonparametric
statistical analysis with a Geisser–Greenhouse
correction suggested that the observed differ-
ences across the contextual conditions were
unlikely to have occurred if there was no true
difference between conditions (χ2 = 53.97,
p < .001). In addition, the results of Dunn’s
multiple comparison analyses suggested that
the differences between each of the groups were
also statistically significant: BOTH v. OTHER
(p < .001), BOTH v. SELF (p < .01), and
OTHER v. SELF (p < .0001).
The s scores provide a measure of discount-
ing across social distance, independent of the
overall level of obtained indifference points
across conditions, and the s scores obtained
from hyperbolic curve functions fitted to each
participant’s data are provided in Table 2. Note
that the estimate of discounting provided by
s is only appropriate when the curve provides a
good fit for the obtained data for each partici-
pant. Therefore, this metric should be inter-
preted with caution. The data show that the
greatest mean s values were associated with the
SELF condition (M = 0.56, SD = 0.38), fol-
lowed by the BOTH condition (M = 0.31,
SD = 0.31), and the OTHER condition
(M = 0.09, SD = 0.20), respectively. It should
be noted that s values were not obtained for
21 of the 36 participants (58.3%) in the SELF
condition, who exclusively chose to keep each
416 JORDAN BELISLE et al.

Table 2
Values Obtained from the Hyperbolic Curve Function Across Conditions

AUC S
Participant BOTH OTHER SELF BOTH OTHER SELF
1 0.2832 0.4209 0.0116 0.1550 0.0525
2 0.2988 0.3071 0.0185 0.4089 0.2603 5.3460
3 0.0219 0.0758 0.0116 0.8590 0.1458
4 0.0325 0.0652 0.0116 0.4013 0.7147
5 0.3732 0.7400 0.0142 0.0765 6.2470
6 0.1532 0.1621 0.0116 0.1209 0.1075
7 0.1621 0.7429 0.0116 0.1075 0.0107
8 0.3324 0.5194 0.0142 0.2518 0.0216 6.2470
9 0.6400 0.9900 0.0116 0.0116
10 0.1500 0.9165 0.0116 0.0657 0.0025
11 0.0652 0.5576 0.0185 1.0370 0.0190 5.3460
12 0.7388 0.9518 0.3494 0.0069 0.0007 0.6561
13 0.0319 0.0363 0.0116 0.4411 0.3305
14 0.0319 0.0735 0.0116 0.4411 0.1527
15 0.9900 0.9900 0.0116
16 0.9900 0.9900 0.0116
17 0.9165 0.9900 0.0116 0.0025
18 0.0363 0.0758 0.0485 0.3305 0.1458 0.2830
19 0.0363 0.0363 0.0363 0.3305 0.3305 0.3305
20 0.2876 0.9900 0.0116 0.0444
21 0.0650 0.9900 0.0116 0.2550
22 0.0116 0.8153 0.9318 0.0037 0.0009
23 0.0270 0.2385 0.0264 2.9980 0.0547 4.9470
24 0.6494 0.9900 0.0116 0.0119
25 0.2641 0.3124 0.0429 0.0500 0.0334 1.8930
26 0.0882 0.4344 0.0116 0.4516 0.0376
27 0.0720 0.9900 0.0162 0.1618 0.9534
28 0.0165 0.0363 0.0116 0.8854 0.3305
29 0.3497 0.3476 0.3588 0.0644 0.0290 0.1160
30 0.6400 0.9900 0.0116 0.0116
31 0.8253 0.9900 0.5605 0.0034 0.1184
32 0.1532 0.1621 0.0116 0.1209 0.1075
33 0.0145 0.0363 0.0116 1.6790 0.3305
34 0.4265 0.8153 0.2729 0.0978 0.0037 0.6896
35 0.1500 0.3476 0.0116 0.0657 0.0290
36 0.7388 0.8753 0.3494 0.0069 0.0024 0.6561
Mean 0.3073 0.5556 0.0917 1.9346 0.0904 34.5922
Median 0.1576 0.5385 0.0116 0.1209 0.0203 57.6900
St. D. 0.3133 0.3833 0.1954 9.5755 0.1531 27.7633

sum of money across all social distances. Simi-
larly, 3 of 36 participants (8.3%) did not dem-
onstrate discounting in the BOTH condition,
and 11 of 36 participants (30.55%) did not
demonstrate discounting in the OTHER con-
dition. This outcome suggests that discounting
in general, regardless of the amount of dis-
counting, may be more likely under specific
contextual conditions, in which social distance
may play less of a factor when economic hard-
ship is considered. A Pearson’s chi-square
analysis supports this conclusion, suggesting
that the differential proportion of participants
who did not demonstrate discounting across
the three conditions was statistically significant
(χ2 = 20.63, p < .0001). Of the 15 participants
who demonstrated discounting in the SELF
condition, 12 showed the greatest discounting
in this condition. Finally, the least discounting
was observed in the OTHER condition for
24 of the 25 participants who demonstrated
discounting in this condition.
 SOCIAL DISCOUNTING IN CONTEXT
1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
AUC
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
Both Other Self
Figure 2. Scatter dot plot and bar graph of participant
AUC scores in each of the contextual conditions. Each
marker represents a participant score, and each bar repre-
sents the mean AUC in each of the conditions.
DISCUSSION
The present study sought to examine how
hypothetical states of relative economic hard-
ship acted as contrived motivating operations
affecting the social discounting of participants
in the study. The discounting curves observed
in the BOTH contextual condition replicate
previous research (e.g., Jones & Rachlin, 2006;
Rachlin & Jones, 2008) by demonstrating that
the subjective value of money decreased across
social distance. Results in the remaining two
conditions extend these findings by suggesting
that relative economic hardship may influence
discounting. Although discounting was
observed in the OTHER condition, albeit with
results that deviate in closeness of fit with the
hyperbolic function, no discounting was
observed for the median values across social dis-
tance in the SELF condition, a finding that fails
to replicate prior research on social discounting.
This outcome may be important in that moti-
vating operations may not only influence the
rate of discounting, as demonstrated by Dixon
et al. (2016), but may also influence whether
discounting occurs at all. In the SELF condi-
tion, a discounting curve was not produced;
the average participant chose to always keep
any sum of money rather than foregoing the
money to provide $75 to a hypothetical other
417
at any social distance. The degree to which
potentially extreme motivating operations miti-
gate other forms of discounting remains to be
seen, but this finding provides a preliminary
demonstration of how extreme motivating
operations may interact with social discounting.
When discounting did occur, the greatest dis-
counting was observed in the SELF condition,
followed by the BOTH condition and the
OTHER condition, respectively. In evaluating
the differences in AUC between conditions,
statistical analyses suggested that the differences
between each of the three conditions were
significant.
An analysis of each of the participants’ AUC
scores in a side-by-side comparison suggests
that differences across the contextual conditions
were consistent across all but two of the partici-
pants in the study. For 34 of the participants,
foregoing the money was more probable when
participants were not in a state of hypothetical
economic hardship, and foregoing the money
was the least probable when participants were
exclusively in a state of hypothetical economic
hardship. Taken together, these results suggest
that the hypothetical economic hardship experi-
enced by the participants, relative to the hypo-
thetical economic hardship experienced by the
other, may influence rates of social discounting.
This finding replicates prior research by Dixon
et al. (2016) and Ostaszewski et al. (1998) by
showing that economic hardship may be a
motivating operation that affects discounting in
general, and adds to a growing body of litera-
ture evaluating contextual conditions that
appear to affect social discounting (Osi nski,
2010; Rachlin & Jones, 2008).
A behavior analytic approach to the study of
social discounting not only has the potential to
predict social choice, but to influence its occur-
rence. Although the scenarios provided in the
current study were hypothetical, the results
provide preliminary translational evidence sug-
gesting that economic hardship may function
as a motivating operation increasing social
418 JORDAN BELISLE et al.
discounting. The most obvious, and unfortu-
nately the least immediately achievable implica-
tion is that decreasing economic hardship
experienced by members of the society may
serve to decrease the influence of social dis-
tance. Indeed, prior research has shown that
philanthropic behavior is more likely to be
demonstrated by individuals of greater socio-
economic status (Schervish & Havens, 2003),
in which behavior described by socio-economic
status analytically correlates with altruistic
responding, rather than merely serving as a pre-
dictor variable. Relativistic wealth disparity is,
however, a socio-cultural phenomenon that has
evolved over generations, so immediate inter-
ventions to decrease wealth differences are not
likely immediately forthcoming.
The results do have potentially more imme-
diate translational implications. As in the results
reported by Bickel et al. (2016), the way
choices are framed can have an influence on
choices that are made. These results suggest
that framing a choice between keeping or fore-
going money in terms of the economic hard-
ship of the other could improve the probability
of foregoing the money. For example, if a char-
ity were to describe the economic conditions of
the other who stands to benefit from dona-
tions, the probability of obtaining donations
may be correspondingly increased. Another
application could be in marketing strategies in
which purchasing certain products can benefit
others. TOMS® shoe company (TOMS.com,
2017), for example, will provide a pair of shoes
to a person living in a country facing economic
hardship when a consumer purchases shoes,
potentially increasing the probability of con-
sumers purchasing shoes from TOMS® and
foregoing purchasing shoes from a competing
shoe company.
A final implication of this study, as well as in
results reported by Osinski (2010) and Rachlin
and Jones (2008), is that by analyzing the con-
textual conditions affecting social discounting,
behavior scientists may specially contribute to
understanding factors that govern altruistic
behavior (Locey, Jones, & Rachlin, 2013a). In
psychology, altruism has been described as self-
sacrificial helping or helping in the absence of
obvious, external reward (Batson & Powell,
2003). In the field of biology, altruism has
been defined as engaging in a response that sac-
rifices the survival potential of the behaving
organism and confers increased survival poten-
tial to a conspecific organism (Kurzban,
Burton-Chellew, & West, 2015). By approach-
ing altruism instead as a specific instance of
choice like any other, we can begin to isolate
variables that make altruistic choices more
probable.
Although the results of the current study
provide an initial evaluation of the current
topic, there are several limitations that must be
addressed. One limitation is that the social dis-
counting questionnaire provides a model of
social discounting in the absence of actual
altruistic behavior. Ultimately, a goal of a
behavior analysis of altruistic behavior would
be to evaluate how relative context affects the
probability of actual behavior. Self-report data
are beneficial in that they allow for the collec-
tion of large data sets, rapid presentation of
concurrent choices, and can be conducted with
a variety of populations. However, these self-
report data must be followed up with empirical
demonstrations of actual behavior under true
contextual manipulations. Despite this limita-
tion, data presented on delay and probability
discounting suggest that scores obtained on the
discounting questionnaires are highly predictive
of behavior in similar experimental arrange-
ments (Johnson & Bickel, 2002). In the con-
text of social discounting, participant responses
on social discounting questionnaires appear to
be similarly predictive of participant perfor-
mance in the prisoner’s dilemma game (Locey
et al., 2013) and the public goods game
(Jones & Rachlin, 2009), which are both non-
hypothetical experimental arrangements. We
do not know, however, the degree to which
 SOCIAL DISCOUNTING IN CONTEXT
even these contrived experimental arrange-
ments, or choices captured in hypothetical
social discounting surveys, resemble choices
when actual money is involved. This limitation
may be especially salient when relative eco-
nomic hardship is manipulated as a motivating
operation.
A second limitation in the current arrange-
ment was that survey questions were presented
in a nonrandomized order, which may have
introduced sequence effects into the analysis.
Increasingly, discounting researchers are using
computerized adjusting amount procedures that
may provide a more accurate measure of dis-
counting as well as elucidate the sequence
effects present in the current investigation
(Richards, Zhang, Mitchell, & de Wit, 1999).
Using this or similar approaches could further
strengthen future research in this area.
A third limitation is that participants may
have interpreted the provided instructions dif-
ferently, which could have influenced the
obtained data. Specifically, although partici-
pants were asked whether they would accept a
sum of money or forego the sum of money to
ensure that the hypothetical other would
receive $75, an alternative interpretation would
have the participant providing $75 to the par-
ticipant “out of their own pocket.” This alter-
native interpretation could have influenced
participant responding, and should be
addressed in future evaluations.
A final limitation is that the study was con-
ducted with university students, and male and
female participants were not equally repre-
sented. The limitation is one of a homogenous
sample that decreases the external validity of
the current study. Although patterns of altruis-
tic responding can be evaluated given any pop-
ulation, and gender-specific differences in social
discounting have yet to be evaluated, replica-
tion of the current results with a broader popu-
lation would suggest that economic hardship is
likely to affect social discounting, regardless of
unrelated demographic variables.
419
Beyond accounting for the limitations in the
present study, future researchers may expand
on the data in several ways. Simon (1995) sug-
gests that a limitation of analyses of social dis-
counting is that two related factors, social
distance and time, are each treated as a single
dimension that affects the value of money sepa-
rately, yet conceptually these factors should
interact, in that the value of money simulta-
neously decreases across time and social dis-
tance. In light of data published by
Vanderveldt, Green, and Myerson (2014), it
may be possible to construct a three-
dimensional model of altruistic behavior by
simultaneously accounting for social distance
and time using a multiplicative discounting
function. Such an endeavor, analogous to the
existing literature on social discounting, would
also require further analyses as to the contextual
conditions that predict and influence such a
model.
Along the same lines, future researchers may
also seek to develop technologies, at both the
individual and the societal level, that decrease
the decaying value of commodities across social
distance. According to Parfit (1984), there are
numerous examples of every-day events in
which altruistic choices would benefit everyone
almost directly; thus, developing a technology
that mitigates the influence of social distance
may be a first step to developing a technology
that promotes altruism on a broader scale. The
results of the present study demonstrate that
economic hardship is one variable that appears
to affect social discounting; however, the con-
textual conditions examined in the present
study are only a few of infinite contexts that
may play a role in social discounting. Prior
research has already isolated at least two other
contextual variables that appear to affect social
discounting (Osi nski, 2010; Rachlin & Jones,
2008), but more analyses are needed before
empirically based social technologies can be
developed that increase the probability of pat-
terns of altruistic responding.
420 JORDAN BELISLE et al.
In summary, social discounting is a socially
relevant pattern of responding that likely con-
tributes to suboptimal group responding in
many arenas. The results of the present study
add to a growing body of research suggesting
that social discounting may be under the con-
textual control of several environmental events.
Economic hardship relative to another appears
to function as a motivating operation, decreas-
ing the probability of foregoing a smaller sum
of money for the self, to confer a larger sum of
money to another. This outcome is strictly
translational; however, these findings may have
implications for (a) decreasing the influence of
social discounting when foregoing money is
desired, and (b) moving toward a behavioral
analysis of choices that may be termed
altruism.
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Received August 18, 2016
Final acceptance August 13, 2018
Action Editor, John Borrero