It’s rare for a morally upright person to erupt suddenly into a crime spree. Instead, a first-time offender usually has a history of problematic behavior. But what type of questionable conduct early in life reliably predicts criminality?
One answer, as a recent research paper shows, is heavy “time discounting”—that is, the tendency to value something less if you have to wait for it. An extreme test of this trait would be giving someone a choice between getting one dollar right now or a gazillion dollars tomorrow. A singularly shortsighted response would be, “A dollar now! Heck, why would I be so stupid as to wait to get paid?”
Typically, those who refuse to wait don’t assess their choice very rationally. Cutting in half the delay for the big payoff, for example, does not double the probability that they will change their mind and wait.
Read more: http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-criminal-trait-in-the-refusal-to-wait-1478107218
