Taken together, delay discounting as a phenotype reflects a decision-making orientation toward smaller immediate rewards compared to larger delayed rewards. This orientation can be thought of as an aspect of personality (e.g., Odum, 2011b) or simply as a decision-making profile. In either case, however, this orientation toward intertemporal rewards can be objectively and precisely characterized using decision-making tasks. Across methodologies and in both cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, there is converging and convincing evidence that impulsive discounting contributes to the development and maintenance of addictive disorders.
