Bias: Present Bias

Introduction

0:00Hello, and welcome to Everything's Psychology. I'm Paul Davis. This week is the last story I'm going to read to you. I've been reading a few stories that I've written, fictional stories, about behavioural biases and how they can lead us astray. And this week's the last one, and it's about present bias.

0:21After this, I'm going to be taking a few weeks off as I organise and record the next round of interviews for the next season. And there's going to be really some very interesting ones next season. Already organised is the psychology of the menopause, the psychology of watches, and by popular demand, after the most popular episode last season, on the psychology of cats, I'm going to be recording an episode about the psychology of dogs.

0:53But don't worry, over the next few weeks until the new episodes, I'm going to be replaying and reviewing some of the old episodes and looking at what was the most popular episodes of season one of Everything's Psychology.

Present Bias Explained

1:07Let's get on with today's one, though. So this one is a story about present bias.

1:20Imagine I made you an offer. I could give you £20, or whatever your currency of choice is, today, or you can have £25 in two weeks. Which would you choose?

1:38Now, imagine I changed the offer slightly. You can have £20 in 52 weeks, or £25 in 54 weeks. If you're like most people, in the first scenario, you would have lunged for the £20 right now, because two weeks feels really far away, and today, well, it's deliciously tangible. But in the second scenario,

2:10your choice likely shifted to waiting a little longer for the extra cash. We become farsighted philosophers when everything is distant,

Marshmallow Test

2:21yet impulsive children when the reward is just hours away. Same choice, same difference in reward, yet totally different behaviour. That inconsistent tendency is a behavioural trait called Present Bias.

2:41Present Bias describes our tendency to give greater weight to rewards available now, while undervaluing the costs these choices impose on our future. In fact, in a study on how people feel about contributing to their pensions, psychologist Shlomo Benazzi found that people find the idea as painful as giving money to a complete stranger.

3:08Probably the most famous experiment on Present Bias is Walter Mischel's The Marshmallow Test. In the 1950s experiment, young children were presented with the ultimate dilemma. A marshmallow was placed in front of them, and they were told they could eat it now, or wait until the experimenter left the room and returned. If they waited, they could have two marshmallows.

3:38The urge to eat the single marshmallow was too much for most of them, and they chose to forgo the greater reward to satiate their immediate need. More interestingly, the children who did delay their gratification grew up to enjoy better life outcomes, including higher academic grades, higher wages, better health, and greater overall life satisfaction.

Evolutionary Advantage

4:07But don't think Present Bias is a defect in our system. It's actually a very rational throwback to when nutritional goodies were scarce. Our ancient ancestors leaving food you could consume now was a very dangerous strategy, as you just didn't know if you would still be around in the future or whether it would still be around in the future. But when resources are not so scarce, our primitive brain still kicks in.

4:40As adults, we face our own marshmallow test every day. Do we choose a scrolling session instead of an early night? Do we buy the affordable version now, rather than saving up to get what we really want later? Or do we choose to have that extra drink tonight instead of the morning meeting's clear-headed version of ourselves tomorrow? The question is, while our future well-being depends entirely on the choices you make now,

5:14how strong are you to resist the urges of today?

Robin's Story Begins

5:26Robin was not a criminal. That's what he kept telling himself. He was a leveller, someone who brought balance to an unfair world. Some people just simply lucked out, often at the expense of those poor schmucks around them. Robin knew that his role was to fight the system, to tip the scales back in favour of the everyman. Of course, he was one of those everymen, so he needed to look out for himself.

5:57That went without saying, but he said it to himself anyway.

6:03He made his way across the water-logged, six-lane highway, fully autonomous vehicles of all sizes speeding straight through him. The Dimensionator 3000, or D3 as it was lazily contracted, clipped to his belt, allowed Robin to take advantage of the multiverse. When the ability to cross dimensions was discovered back in the 60s, it was heralded as the saviour of our world and way of life.

6:34No more famine. No more wars. We could live in the best universe and let the rest burn. Turns out that all the dimensions are screwed. Admittedly, they are all screwed in their own way, but people didn't pay attention to such subtleties. It was like choosing whether you wanted soup with a fly or a wasp in it. The result was that the technology intended to save us ended up being just a tool of convenience,

7:04nothing more.

7:07When the D3 sensed danger, it momentarily skipped you into a different universe, where the danger didn't exist. That 70-ton 18-wheeler travelling at 160 miles per hour might turn you into street charm in this universe. But for the split second of impact, you were in another universe, where the truck had left the depot ten seconds late due to a computer glitch. Once the danger had passed,

7:38you blipped back. The first time people used it, they became sick. Some people were never able to get over it, but Robin no longer noticed the micro-blackouts that came with switching universes so rapidly.

7:55As with all innovations, they come with consequences. The ability to avoid danger, not just speeding lumps of metal, but all dangers, meant that people lived for fucking ever. Well, not literally. They just didn't die unnaturally. No car crashes. No murders. No drownings. No snake bites. Nothing could stop you if you had your D3 activated and could afford the subscription.

8:25Cities had become so overpopulated that homelessness was no longer a problem. It was the norm, and therefore ignored. Food shortages were at an all-time high, and new foodstuffs were needed to sustain the ever-growing masses.

8:44People no longer asked what was in their meals. Anyone old enough remembers what it was like to wake up to birdsong or be allowed to own a pet. Seeing a genuine, flesh-and-blood animal was now a rarity enjoyed only by those who could afford to live in the zoological districts. These districts highlighted that the gap between rich and poor was now so vast that cities were physically divided,

9:14so the ruling class never had to witness the grubby neediness of the lesser citizens. And there was no going back. Once Pandora's box had been opened, no one was going to be the one to close it again. Well, the Suicult members were doing their best to lower the population by shunning all augments and choosing ever more spectacular ways to die. But they were fighting millions of years of human instinct. For everyone else,

9:45the Suicults were nothing more than a source of conversation about what was wrong with those poor people.

9:54Robin's D3 powered down as he stepped off the hazardous highway and onto the relative safety of the sidewalk. In front of the all-night, module-like parlour, an old model canine unit came to life and gave out a glitching electronic simulation of a bark. It was nearly midnight and the shop's green neon sign reflected off the areas where the robo-pooch's fur was hanging off in clumps. There were no streetlights,

10:24as most people had biomods to augment their natural vision, allowing them to see perfectly in all conditions. Those who didn't have the credits shrank into their own darkness.

10:38Robin could see a figure of a girl was slumped into the drainage gap between the storefronts. Alerted by the bark to a passing opportunity, she stuck out her pebble. Help a girl with some credits, mister. Her voice took on a tone of someone younger. She knew the world was a shithole of a stage and to gain any credits tonight, she had to be the helpless child.

11:04Robin bent down and could see that she must have been about twelve. She had wide, brown eyes that pleaded with you like a sad Sam plushie. Robin knew that she wasn't really on her own. Her gang would be around here somewhere, watching. She was presumably the smallest in the group and therefore the most likely to pull on the heartstrings of an empathetic passerby. He also knew that she wasn't there by accident. I need access

11:35to an unregulated F-unit for one hour, Robin whispered as he touched his pebble to hers. She waited for the transaction to be approved before getting up, pulling up a hood and tugging at the lead which activated her cyber-mut to heal. Robin followed them both at a distance.

11:56The girl was too young for a D3 so she took the long way around the streets. She walked briskly, faster than Robin, but he could track her perfectly through his eye-mods. Robin could hear the faint sound of multiple sets of feet following in the shadows. Her gang kept out of sight but stayed within range should Robin be anything other than what he said. He remembered what it was like to be in such a gang. Looking out for each other was all you had.

12:28A part of him envied them. He was no longer part of anything other than the hustle and the mark. After this job he could change that. He would come back. He would help this girl. He would help all of them. But he needed this job to go smoothly.

12:47The girl had stopped about a hundred yards in front of him. She tapped her shoe multiple times on a metal door built into the sidewalk. A rhythm of a song Robin once knew. A song he often sang with his own crew in merrier times. She then bent down, scooped up her android accomplice and turned to face Robin. Despite the darkness and the unlikely chance she had eye mods she looked directly at Robin and then to the ground

13:18beneath her feet. And then she turned once more and traipsed into an unknown night. Robin didn't rush. He walked up to where the girl had stood. It was an old trap door which must have been used for beer deliveries to a long forgotten ale house. As he looked one side of the trap clicked open an inch. He struggled to lift the weight of the door and made an effort to do so with as little sound as possible.

13:49There was no one around but he never knew whose eyes biological or otherwise could be watching from the surrounding buildings.

13:59Beneath the trap a set of stone steps set at an extreme angle led down into a damp darkness. No lights led the way or protected anyone descending from a fateful fall. It was assumed that anyone venturing down this particular hole was augmented and had their D3 subscription fully paid up.

14:23Robin steadily moved down the first few steps pulling the heavy metal down above his head as he sank below street level. He noticed the absence of the anticipated metallic sound as the door met its partner and sealed. Instead there was only a soft whooshing of air and an almost inaudible click as the lock set back into place above his head. Even with his augments Robin took each step with care.

14:54His D3 would save him from any real danger but he didn't want to waste further credits on something as stupid as taking a tumble. He put his hands out to each side and steadied himself against the moist cold walls that escorted him down the passage.

15:12After what must have been five minutes of descending deeper into the bowels of the city Robin came to a stop in front of a small door. He tried pushing and pulling but it was locked. Without instructions he gave the door an opportunistic knock and waited. Still nothing.

15:33Remembering the girl's cadenced tapping on the trap above Robin emulated the knock on the door in front of him. His rhythmical coda was answered by a metallic clank from the other side followed by the scraping of the door suddenly opening away from Robin and rushing light into his visual cortex before his augments could adjust.

15:56When he could open his eyes again the figure of a small man stood in the aperture before him. Welcome to Greenwood squeaked the mouse-sized man. Marion said you needed one hour.

16:11Robin assumed the young girl who led him here had connected ahead. He could see the tiny man had an augment on the left side of his head with wires burrowing directly into his broker's area so communication went directly to the language centre of his brain. He would have heard her speaking like it was his own inner voice.

16:32Yes and I need a unit with a full temporal private network. Robin's eyes had adjusted now and he could see the light which almost knocked out his V5 augment was emanating from an array of green lights suspended from a ceiling which ascended up as far as he had climbed down.

16:53Behind the tiny gatekeeper was a vast atrium with masses of wires plunging down from the distant ceiling. The multicoloured electronic strands twisted together to form large clumps and branched across the room like galvanic roots reaching down into the city's subterranean stratiography.

17:14Each cluster of cables ended by piercing the roof of a series of small wooden booths that seemed to be strewn haphazardly across the room's expanse.

17:25The imp nodded. They all come with a TPN as standard. You're in hut nine. He stood back and let Robin pass him into the cavernous space. Robin beheld the seemingly unending array of huts surrounding him and was glad to have been allocated a low number. He looked back to see that the gatekeeper had shut the door and had clambered up onto a high stool. He jerked out his little arm and pointed at a hut to Robin's left.

17:57Robin navigated between the wires and other mechanical detritus to the spot the male munchkin had indicated.

18:05Hut nine was identical to all the others with the exception of having a numeral nine on the door. The hut was roughly the size of a small SUV with his own network of electronic routes penetrating the roof to power and connect the user cocooned within.

18:24Once inside Robin pulled the thick cable from the ceiling and positioned it above the only piece of furniture in the room a Lincoln green gaming chair with the word Angervin embroidered on the headrest. In a world full of wireless connections and power true privacy can only be found in wires. He sat in the chair and inserted the glowing end of the optical cable into the augment at the base of his skull.

Robin's Plan

18:56Robin relaxed into the chair as he waited for the connection to be routed through to the various safety nodes. With the direct connection to his V5 cortex and optical nerve he could now see the digital prompts floating in front of him.

19:12Establishing temporal connection attempt one of nine. A progress bar swiftly swept across his vision and reached 100% to indicate that he was now connected. Robin logged in. Not as himself. That would be a rookie mistake. He had built up a portfolio of different identities over the years. The good ones were real people, often children who had died before they reached the point of cerebration where their brain could tolerate a dimensionator.

19:44Robin then adjusted the records to make it look like they'd survived, grown into a sagacious teen and gone to an exclusive college to study whatever he needed them to have studied to impress the mark. He didn't always require this level of detail but for this particular mark he knew that he needed to take every precaution possible. It was going to be his toughest hustle yet but the payout was so good he just couldn't resist.

20:17With an established temporal connection and his ID authenticated he was moments away from achieving his goal or blowing it all and ending up with nothing. Ironically it was now or never.

20:34Hello Will, I'm here. The text-based message floated into Robin's field of vision. Despite the huge advances in technology over the decades the design of an instant messages speech bubble was almost identical to how it always had been.

20:52How's the weather back in your time? The next bubble appeared just below the first in a gradient of lurid greens.

21:01Robin knew he needed to be patient and keep the marks sweet so he went through the humdrum patter of small talk that established any human interaction.

21:11It's a bright and sunny afternoon here Robert, Robin lied. I'm looking forward to getting out into it later and enjoying a cool beer at the club. He followed his written message with an emoji of a yellow duck in swimming trunks swigging from a small bottle while doing a little dance. Robin knew that painting a rosy vision of his life helped the mark feel relaxed as they were in the company of a like-minded class of person.

21:39It's also why he had persuaded Robert to avoid video calls in their previous communications. He couldn't let him see the reality of his world. There was also another small reason. Having a video call with the future used up serious credits. Text-based chats were the cheapest way to communicate with someone in the future, but even they used an eye-bleeding amount of credits to run.

22:06Being able to communicate with people in the future wasn't strictly legal. Governments and the military had the technology and certain areas of science were permitted sparing use of it, which is ironic, seeing that they were the ones who developed the F-tech in the first place. You would have thought that being able to talk with your chrono counterparts would have solved so many of the world's problems. The advice you could gain from those who

22:36had lived through difficulties should mean you could make different choices, better choices, and yet the world was the same shit heap it had always been. It turned out that the future had little to offer in the way of useful advice. The initial tests focused on the major disasters that could befall us, allowing today's nations to take action to avoid them. The problem was that whatever they did, the

23:07outcome happened anyway. Not always in the same way or in the same place, but the severity was always equal. It turned out the universe was predestined and no one could do anything about it.

23:24Outside of governments and the military, the first thing any normal person wants to ask someone in the future is, what are this weekend's winning lotto numbers? It turns out that the universe has a safety catch for this sort of chronological loophole. When the futurite tries to spill the winning lotto numbers, or reveal which stocks and shares soar or plummet, or give away who wins the Super Bowl, the transmission moves to a different dimension where this doesn't happen.

23:56Turns out that discovering inter-dimensional travel ruined the idea of weaponised prescience. Who knew?

24:05Underground F-tech dens were few and far between, simply because demand wasn't there. No one could work out a way to gain the system to their own advantage. Many had tried, all had failed. Those who did frequent them did so at extreme risk and even more extreme credits. Robin was wagering his last remaining stash on converting this mark into his largest payday yet. said, have

24:35you managed to get out on your yacht this summer? Robin inquired, knowing that getting the mark talking about positive aspects of their life puts them in a better frame of mind for going along with what you want them to do later.

24:51Robin had always been one of life's natural psychologists. He was as far away from having any form of qualification as you could be, but he knew how to manipulate people. Knowing what made people tick was how he survived. And he knew all too well that people's primary drive is greed. It's always greed.

25:15Getting the mark talking about his own signals of conspicuous consumption was paving the path that Robin wanted him to walk down. If Robin played this well, the paving would be gold.

25:29After letting Robert wax on for several minutes about the freedom of being able to sail off whenever he wanted, he spotted an opportunity to get the conversation back on track.

25:41Did you go for the hundred and twenty-foot aluminium hulled beauty in the end?

25:46Robin knew he hadn't, but this was part of the bait.

25:51Alas, no. Circumstances didn't align. But who needs the extra thirty feet anyway? You could almost taste the sour grapes in Robert's words. Well, that's why I'm here. Robin sprang into action with a quick reply before Robert could continue. The investment opportunity we've been discussing will allow you to have a fleet of superyachts, one for every day of the week.

26:19That would be overkill, but I get your point, the green reply bubble responded. The problem is trust. We're talking a lot of money changing hands here.

26:33I acknowledge your concern, Robert. You've worked hard to make your money, and putting it at risk makes you nervous.

26:42Robin knew that he shouldn't challenge the marked statements, instead confirm them to show that they were right before offering a counterposition. It's like sailing. It's fine to simply head out into the open sea to have a gentle pootle around. It's not called plain sailing for no reason. There's no need to put your expensive yacht at risk. However, there's a feeling inside of wanting to push it, to open her up and see

27:13what she can really do. The next thing you know, you're hanging off the side in a hiking manoeuvre to counter the force of the wind as you hurtle at exhilarating speeds through the water. Pushing the limits is where some people just need to live.

27:31Robin knew he was pushing the sailing analogy a little, but he was all in now. Afterwards, you not only have the memory, but also the tale to tell how you took the risk and came out victorious.

27:46After an unnervingly pregnant pause, Robert responded, You're good. I'll give you that. He knew what Robin was doing, but liked it anyway. Robin knew that Robert knew. That was the trick.

28:03Remind me what's involved. The bait had been taken and the mark was hooked. Time to reel him in.

28:13You invest in the hotel before it's built. The most insane thing is that you already know it's a success, and you live in the time where it's the destination du jour for anybody who's anybody. Robin was on a roll now. It really is a no-brainer. By investing with us, you're guaranteed a twenty-fold increase in your original investment, and the sweetener is that you see your return immediately.

28:45Another long pause in the communications made Robin nervous that he'd pushed it too far. Never come across like a salesman, he knew that, but time was short, and he needed this. Robin looked at the timer. They had been connected now for forty-two minutes. He had only eighteen minutes left in his hour to seal the deal.

29:11Finally, his view updated with a satisfying popping sound as Robert's reply appeared. How do I make the transfer? Transferring money across time wasn't simple. Money in the future didn't technically