The Effect of Immediacy and Delay on Affective Reactions Toward Sure and Risky Gambles
Andrea Pittarello & Enrico Rubaltelli
What the paper says
Two pilot studies and 2 experiments (N = 1,168) explored whether delaying a sure (or highly likely) outcome would reduce its appeal relative to a more immediate riskier outcome. In our pilot studies, participants separately viewed a gamble with either a 100% (or highly likely) chance to win or a 50% chance to win, with the reward available either today or in 1 month. We found that the 100% was always more attractive than the 50% and that that highly likely gamble did not differ from the 50%. In Experiments 1 and 2 we shifted to within-subject designs in which participants evaluated a series of gambles with varying delay and likelihood of realization. In these settings, participants found a certain, delayed gamble less appealing than a riskier, immediate one, but only when the payout for both was in the near future. Conversely, for risky options, delaying a high-probability gamble made it as appealing as a riskier, immediate option—again, only when both would pay out soon. In summary, these findings suggest that risky outcomes are particularly sensitive to delays, more so than certain ones.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.