Patience, Cognitive Abilities, and Cognitive Effort: Survey and Experimental Evidence From a Developing Country

Stefania Bortolotti; Thomas Dohmen; Hartmut Lehmann; Frauke Meyer; Norberto Pignatti; Karine Torosyan

doi:10.1177/0002764221996744

Patience, Cognitive Abilities, and Cognitive Effort: Survey and Experimental Evidence From a Developing Country

Stefania Bortolotti, Thomas Dohmen^*, Hartmut Lehmann, Frauke Meyer, Norberto Pignatti, Karine Torosyan

^*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

This study sheds light on the relationship between cognition and patience by documenting that the correlation between cognitive abilities and delay discounting is weaker for the same group of individuals if choices are incentivized. This study conjectures that higher cognitive effort, which induces higher involvement of the cognitive system, moderates the relationship between patience and cognition. For 107 participants drawn from the adult population in Tbilisi, this study examines the relationship between various measures of cognitive ability and that of patience. Specifically, we consider the relationship between the Cognitive Reflection Test, a numeracy test, self-reported math ability measure, enumerators' assessments, and incentivized and hypothetical trade-offs between smaller-sooner and larger-later payments.

Original language	English
Article number	0002764221996744
Pages (from-to)	1512-1530
Number of pages	19
Journal	American Behavioral Scientist
Volume	65
Issue number	11
Early online date	17 Mar 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764221996744
Publication status	Published - Oct 2021

Keywords

behavioral economics
cognition
patience
experimental evidence
developing country

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10.1177/0002764221996744

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Cite this

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