Short-Term Mindsets: Beyond Traits and Self-Regulation

Abstract

The study of intertemporal choice has been a topic of perennial interest to psychologists, behavioral economists, and cognitive scientists alike. Yet, dominant approaches often conflate time perspective with self-regulation and struggle to explain within-person shifts toward short-term choices. We introduce the concept of ‘short-term mindsets’—which reflects the tendency to prioritize immediate (versus future) outcomes. While partly dispositional, short-term mindsets are also responsive to situational states (e.g., intoxication, arousal), acute events (e.g., threat), and broader environments (e.g., neighborhood violence). Crucially, it decouples time perspective from self-regulatory ability. We propose Short-Term Mindsets Theory as useful set of principles for understanding intertemporal choice and outline key directions for measurement and empirical validation.