{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,26]],"date-time":"2026-08-26T16:26:12Z","timestamp":1787761572626,"version":"build-2784847793"},"reference-count":73,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,26]],"date-time":"2026-06-26T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1782432000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Psychol."],"abstract":"<jats:p>Intertemporal choices, which involve consequences spread over time, often display a bias toward short-term rewards, which was recognized in ancient Greek philosophy as \u201cakrasia.\u201d This bias is nowadays often modelled via hyperbolic discounting models, where intertemporal choice failings are due to an inherently irrational way of trading-off present and future rewards. Hyperbolic discounting models lead to precommitment as a suggested strategy to avoid short-term rewards, as in the Greek story of Odysseus and the sirens. We contrastingly propose a boundedly rational model of naturalistic intertemporal choice, where the complexity of the choice sets lead to people discounting future rewards rationally, but only up to a finite, mentally simulated horizon. This is consistent with only three unique types of error which we link to the established naturalistic biases of addiction, procrastination, and choosing smaller-sooner over larger-later rewards. A second assumption regarding the attentional resources required to simulate outcomes at varying delays then leads to the well-known phenomenon of \u201cpreference reversals\u201d \u2014 where these three errors tend to recur in the present despite a stated preference to do better in the future. Importantly, extending mental simulation further into the future reduces all these errors, and allows people to act more in accordance with their true preferences. This prediction is consistent with a nascent empirical literature on successful intertemporal choice interventions, which all appear to succeed by helping people to think about the future. This model\u2019s psychological mechanism can help inform the design of future intertemporal choice interventions.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2026.1797154","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,26]],"date-time":"2026-06-26T11:53:06Z","timestamp":1782474786000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["It will be worth it, in the end: a model of naturalistic intertemporal choice"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Philip","family":"Newall","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol","place":["Bristol, United Kingdom"]},{"name":"Experimental Gambling Research Laboratory, School of Health, Medical and Applied Sciences, CQUniversity","place":["Melbourne, VIC, Australia"]},{"name":"Applied Psychology, Warwick Manufacturing Group, University of Warwick","place":["Coventry, United Kingdom"]},{"name":"Chair of Marketing, Technical University of Munich","place":["Munich, Germany"]},{"name":"Behavioural Science Centre, University of Stirling","place":["Stirling, United Kingdom"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Mike W.","family":"Peacey","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Economics, University of Bristol","place":["Bristol, United Kingdom"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,26]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"463","DOI":"10.1037\/h0076860","article-title":"Specious reward: a behavioral theory of impulsiveness and impulse control","volume":"82","author":"Ainslie","year":"1975","journal-title":"Psychol. 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