PROBABILITY AND DELAY IN COMMITMENT

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Abstract
In the first stage of a two‐stage choice, human subjects chose between probabilistic access to a second choice (between a small high‐probability reward and a large low‐probability reward) and commitment to the large low‐probability reward. When confronted with the second‐stage choice, subjects strongly preferred the small high‐probability reward. When the first‐stage probability (of access to the second stage) was high, subjects strongly preferred the path leading to the choice in the second stage. But when the first‐stage probability was low, subjects committed themselves to the large low‐probability reward. These results parallel those obtained by Rachlin and Green (1972) with pigeons and constitute some evidence that probabilities may be interpreted as delays.

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