Authors:
Adam Szekeres
and
Einar Snekkenes
Affiliation:
Department of Information Security and Communication Technology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology - NTNU, Gjøvik, Norway
Keyword(s):
Delay Discounting, Temporal Preferences, Psychological Profile, Information Security Risk Analysis, Stakeholder Behavior Prediction, Adaptive Incentives.
Abstract:
Decision-makers regularly need to make trade-offs between benefits in the present and the future. Smaller immediate rewards are often preferred over larger delayed rewards. The concept of delay discounting describes how rewards further in the future lose their value in comparison to immediate or more proximal rewards. Empirical evidence shows that people discount future rewards using a hyperbolic function, which gives rise to preference reversals as the delay between a decision and receipt of the reward increases. People show great differences in terms of their tendency to discount future benefits. The extent of discounting is characterized by each individuals’ discounting factor k. This study investigates the extent to which the discounting factor k can be inferred from publicly observable pieces of information (i.e. ownership of items, habits) linked to individuals. Data was collected from 331 respondents in an online questionnaire. The analyses show that 37% of the variance can be
explained by public observables in the best case, and between 17-33%, when the predictive model is tested on unseen data. The results contribute to the development of a risk analysis method within the domain of information security, which currently lacks the temporal dimension when predicting stakeholder behavior. Furthermore, the results have key implications for the emerging e-health sector, where individuals’ immediate incentives need to be aligned with long-term societal benefits.
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