Impatience as Intertemporal Egoism

We build on a philosophical account of personal identity (Parfit, 1984) which argues that the degree of concern one has for one's future self may be scaled by the degree of "psychological connectedness"-overlap in properties such as beliefs, values, and ideals-held between one's current and future self We pose participants with tradeoffs between consuming a benefit in the near future versus consuming more of that benefit in the distant future. When people's sense of connectedness with their future self is reduced, they make impatient choices.