Hyperbolic Discounting
The tendency for people to increasingly choose a smaller (but more immediate) reward over a larger (but later) reward as the delay occurs sooner rather than later in time.
EverydayConcepts.io
Origin
Richard Herrnstein laid the groundwork at Harvard University with his 1961 matching law, showing that animals allocate behavior in direct proportion to reward rates and inverse proportion to delay. Psychiatrist George Ainslie identified the hyperbolic shape of the resulting discount curve in a 1975 paper, later developing it into a comprehensive account of impulsivity and self-control in his 1992 book Picoeconomics.
Updated February 22, 2026