Delay discounting in children exposed to disaster

Abstract

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.