Open AccessDelay discounting in children exposed to disaster
Author(s) -
Yusuke Matsuyama,
Takeo Fujiwara,
Yasuyuki Sawada,
Junkichi Yagi,
Hirobumi Mashiko,
Ichiro Kawachi
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0243994
Subject(s) - discounting , delay discounting , security token , demography , confidence interval , psychology , medicine , gerontology , economics , computer science , computer security , finance , sociology
Delay discounting is an important predictor of future health and academic success in children but can change in environmental uncertainty situations. Here we show that the experience of loss of housing in the Great East Japan Earthquake 2011—but not other psychological trauma such as loss of loved ones—was correlated delay discounting of children. In 2014, we assessed delay discounting in children (N = 167; mean age = 8.3 years-old), who were preschool age at the time of the earthquake (mean age at the time of disaster = 4.8 years-old) in a time-investment exercise where children allocated five tokens between rewards "now" (one candy per token on the same day) versus "one month later" (two candies per token one month later). The number of tokens allocated for "now" was higher by 0.535 (95% confidence interval: −0.012, 1.081) in children who had their housing destroyed or flooded than those with no housing damage. Other types of traumatic experiences were not associated with delay discounting.