← all facts
motivation
You prioritize small gains over large rewards.
The 'present bias' is an economic model describing the tendency to value smaller, immediate rewards over larger, delayed ones.
The evolutionary claim regarding resource acquisition is a theoretical hypothesis for why this bias exists, not a confirmed fact or a finding from the cited O'Donoghue & Rabin paper.
Your biological hardware is programmed to favor the immediate over the optimal.
Where this comes from
- Study
- O'Donoghue & Rabin, 1999, The Quarterly Journal of Economics
- What the check found
- The economic definition of the bias is accurate, but the causal evolutionary explanation provided is speculative and not part of the cited academic research.
- Confidence
- Solid, with limits
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.