Overlapping defaults. The case of intertemporal choices

People make different choices depending on which decision is the default option. In intertemporal choices, the default option is typically imposed externally. For example, people expect more for delaying the gain (default in the present) than are willing to pay for accelerating the future gain over the same period (default in the future). We claim that apart from the external default, people’s choices are also influenced by the internal (natural) default such as the time perspective resulting in the reference point in the present. By manipulating the congruency between the internal and external defaults, we show that incongruence between defaults decreases the strength of discounting of gains, but not of losses.