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Reflection · Cognition

The Present Bias Test

Five trades, each shown twice — once with “today” on the table, once with both options pushed into the future. The wait is identical. The bonus is identical. A consistent person picks the same way both times. Most people flip. WIZ measures how loud your now-self is.

I will give you ten trades. Each trade asks the same thing: take a smaller amount sooner, or wait and take a larger amount. The wait is real. The money is hypothetical. The pattern is not.

Five of those trades secretly belong to the other five. Same gap, same bonus — only the start time differs. If your now-self and your later-self agree, your answers will line up.

A clean exponential discounter never flips. A typical human flips twice. Walter Mischel's four-year-olds flipped on every pair where a marshmallow was visible.

5
Pairs
10
Choices
~3 min
Time

by Pawel Jozefiak

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