Why short-term thinking dominates

If you ask a child to choose between eating one ice cream immediately or two ice creams a day later, she'll invariably choose to have just one right away. But if you give the child a choice between one ice cream the next day or two ice creams the day after that, almost all children will choose to wait the extra day and get two ice creams instead of one. I think all parents know this. I too figured this out almost as soon as my daughter was old enough to ask for things. Of course, children are pretty clever and often manage to outmanoeuvre parents. But whether it works or not, parents know that the trick is to try and avoid situations where a choice has to be made between immediate gratification and some future pleasure. Unlike parents, econom