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Weighting on waiting: Willpower and attribute weighting models of decision making

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2021

Alison Harris Open the ORCID record for Alison Harris [Opens in a new window]
Alison Harris*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Science, Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA91711. [email protected]; http://www.cmc.edu/pages/faculty/AHarris
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Abstract

Willpower is often conceptualized as incorporating effortful and momentary suppression of immediate but ultimately inferior rewards. Yet, growing evidence instead supports a process of attribute weighting, whereby normatively optimal choices arise from separable evaluation of different attributes (e.g., time and money). Strategic allocation of attention settles conflicts between competing choice-relevant attributes, which could be expanded to include self-referential predictions (“resolve”).

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 44 , 2021 , e38
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Creative Commons
The target article and response article are works of the U.S. Government and are not subject to copyright protection in the United States.
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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