The role of temporal proximity of potential outcomes for promoting health behaviors across the adult life span

The goal of this study was to investigate how the basis of socioemotional selectivity theory, a change in perceived time horizon, can be used to optimize health messages for both younger and older adults. The researchers examined age differences in the effectiveness of health messages that emphasize immediately or relatively quickly attainable benefits of walking compared to benefits of walking attainable over the long term.

Younger and older adults were informed about benefits of walking or negative consequences of inactivity occurring in the short-term or long-term (e.g., benefits in the short-term: “Taking a walk is a first step to good health and to avoiding serious and chronic illness because immediately after taking a walk your immune system is strengthened.”; benefits in the long-term: “Regular walking can support good health and help you avoid serious and chronic illness because walking regularly over the years can promote a strong immune system.”; negative consequences of inactivity in the short-term: “Not taking a walk is a first step to poor health and to developing serious and chronic illness because an immediate effect of not walking is a weakened immune system.”; negative consequences of inactivity in the long-term: “Not walking regularly can worsen your health and lead to the development of serious and chronic illness because not walking regularly over the years can weaken your immune system.”). Participants’ walking was measured with pedometers. Additionally, participants’ temporal discounting rate – or how they value immediate compared to delayed outcomes – was assessed with a questionnaire.

Positively-framed messages promoted walking in younger and older adults, regardless of whether they described immediate or long-term benefits of walking. However, trajectories of the effects of walking seemed to vary, such that messages describing immediate outcomes seemed to decline in their effectiveness, whereas messages describing long-term outcomes seemed to increase in their effectiveness. Negatively-framed messages only promoted walking when they described the long-term negative consequences of inactivity, but even these messages seemed to decline in their effectiveness over time; this was true for both younger and older adults. In younger adults, individual differences in the valuation of time were related to the effectiveness of the messages about immediate outcomes; the more younger adults valued immediate over delayed outcomes, the more they increased their walking in response to the messages about immediate benefits of walking and the less effective were the messages about immediate negative consequences of inactivity.