Ecological Validity of Impulsive Choice: Consequences of Profitability-Based Short-Sighted Evaluation in the Producer-Scrounger Resource Competition

Results of intertemporal choice paradigm have been accounted for mostly by psychological terms such as temporal discounting of subjective value. Inability to wait for delayed gratification (choice impulsiveness, as opposed to self-control) is often taken to represent violated rationality. If viewed from foraging ecology, however, such impulsiveness can be accountable as adaptive adjustments to requirements in nature. First, under the...