Familiarity and time preferences: Decision making about treatments for migraine headaches and Crohn's disease

Time preferences tend to be quite consistent within 1 decision domain but unrelated between different domains, such as health and money. One explanation may be that the young, healthy participants in previous studies were familiar with financial decisions but unfamiliar with health decisions. In Experiment 1, patient participants with 1 of 2 diagnoses (migraine headaches or inflammatory bowel disease) were given time preference scenarios concerning their own disorder (familiar), the other group's disorder (unfamiliar), and money. Monetary time preferences were not more closely related to time preferences from the familiar health scenario than to those from the unfamiliar scenario. Experiment 2 replicated the results with healthy participants and ruled out 1 alternative account of Experiment 1. These results have implications for self-control problems and public policy.