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George W. Ainslie is an American psychiatrist, psychologist and
behavioral economist Behavioral economics studies the effects of psychological, cognitive, emotional, cultural and social factors on the decisions of individuals or institutions, such as how those decisions vary from those implied by classical economic theory. ...
. Unusual for a psychiatrist, Ainslie undertook experimental animal research in
operant conditioning Operant conditioning, also called instrumental conditioning, is a learning process where behaviors are modified through the association of stimuli with reinforcement or punishment. In it, operants—behaviors that affect one's environment—are c ...
, under the guidance of
Howard Rachlin Howard Rachlin (1935–2021) was an American psychologist and the founder of teleological behaviorism. He is Emeritus Research Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology at Stony Brook University in New York. His initial work was in the quan ...
. He investigated inter-temporal choice in
pigeon Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily ...
s, and was the first to demonstrate experimentally the phenomenon of preference reversal in favor of the more immediate outcomes as the choice point between two options, one delivered sooner than the other, is moved forward in time. He explained this in terms of
hyperbolic discounting In economics, hyperbolic discounting is a time-''inconsistent'' model of delay discounting. It is one of the cornerstones of behavioral economics and its brain-basis is actively being studied by neuroeconomics researchers. According to the disc ...
of future rewards, derived from ideas that Rachlin and others had developed from
Richard Herrnstein Richard Julius Herrnstein (May 20, 1930 – September 13, 1994) was an American psychologist at Harvard University. He was an active researcher in animal learning in the Skinnerian tradition. Herrnstein was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psycholo ...
's
matching law In operant conditioning, the matching law is a quantitative relationship that holds between the relative rates of response and the relative rates of reinforcement in concurrent schedules of reinforcement. For example, if two response alternatives ...
. Ainslie then integrated these ideas with earlier experimental and theoretical work on inter-temporal choice, for example the studies of Walter Mischel on delay of gratification in children. In his book ''Picoeconomics'' (1992) he attempted to account for these ideas, and also facts about
addiction Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to engage in certain behaviors, one of which is the usage of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use oft ...
that he was concerned with from his clinical work at the
Veteran Administration The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a Cabinet-level executive branch department of the federal government charged with providing life-long healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 170 VA medical centers a ...
Medical Center,
Coatesville, Pennsylvania Coatesville is a city in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 13,350 at the 2020 census. Coatesville is approximately 39 miles west of Philadelphia. It developed along the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike beginnin ...
(where he rose to become chief psychiatrist),Elster, J. (Ed) (1999). Addiction: Entries and Exits. New York: Russell Sage Foundation (see Notes on Contributors). by supposing that different parts or aspects of the personality are in conflict with one another. He grounded this idea in the Freudian theory of id, ego and superego; it became important in behavioral economics in the form of
Richard Thaler Richard H. Thaler (; born September 12, 1945) is an American economist and the Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. In 2015, Thaler was pr ...
's "multiple selves" theory of saving behavior. Many of Ainslie's ideas have proved to be foundational within behavioral economics, and his work (along with that of Drazen Prelec) formed a key conduit by which ideas and data from operant conditioning joined the current of work on
decision making In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be either ra ...
to challenge the
rational choice theory Rational choice theory refers to a set of guidelines that help understand economic and social behaviour. The theory originated in the eighteenth century and can be traced back to political economist and philosopher, Adam Smith. The theory postula ...
that had dominated economic thinking. In addition to his work at the Veterans Administration, Ainslie has held a position as a Clinical Professor at
Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then called ...
in Philadelphia


Picoeconomics

Picoeconomics is a term used by George Ainslie in order to describe the different implications of an experimental discovery: the tendency for people to have a stronger preference for more immediate payoffs relative to later payoffs, where the tendency increases the closer to the present both payoffs are. Given two similar rewards, humans show a preference for one that arrives sooner rather than later. Humans are said to discount the value of the later reward, by a factor that increases with the length of the delay. Just as classical economics describes negotiation for limited resources among institutions, and microeconomics describes such negotiation among individuals, so picoeconomics describes interactions that resemble negotiation among parts that can be defined within the individual for control of that individual's finite behavioral capacity. A large number of experiments have confirmed that spontaneous preferences by both human and nonhuman subjects follow a
hyperbolic curve In mathematics, hyperbolic functions are analogues of the ordinary trigonometric functions, but defined using the hyperbola rather than the circle. Just as the points form a circle with a unit radius, the points form the right half of the ...
rather than the conventional, exponential curve that would produce consistent choice over time.Ainslie, G. (1992). Picoeconomics: The Strategic Interaction of Successive Motivational States Within the Person. New York: Cambridge University Press. For instance, when offered the choice between $50 now and $100 a year from now, many people will choose the immediate $50. However, given the choice between $50 in five years or $100 in six years almost everyone will choose $100 in six years, even though that is the same choice seen at five years’ greater distance.


Works

* * * * *Ainslie, G. (1992). ''Picoeconomics''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *Ainslie, G. (2001). ''Breakdown of will''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * *Ainslie, G. (2006) "A selectionist model of the ego: Implications for self-control". In N. Sebanz & W. Prinz (Eds.) ''Disorders of Volition'' (pp. 119–149). MIT Press. * *Ainslie, G. (2010) "The core process in addictions and other impulses: Hyperbolic discounting versus conditioning and framing". In D. Ross, H. Kincaid, D. Spurrett & P. Collins (Eds.) ''What is Addiction?'' (pp. 211–245). MIT Press. *Ainslie, G. (2011) "'Free will' as recursive self-prediction: Does a deterministic mechanism reduce responsibility?". In G. Graham & J. Poland (Eds.) ''Addiction and Responsibility'' (pp. 55–87). *


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ainslie, George Neuroeconomists in Psychiatry Behavioral economists American psychologists Living people 1944 births