Scientific Foundations

The Methodology

Methodological Definition

James Mazur's Delay Discounting (1987) is a quantitative behavioral economic model where perceived value decays hyperbolically over time. In Civicamente, this formula quantifies a voter's willingness to prioritize long-term societal investments over immediate short-term populist benefits.

Future Orientation is measured through Delay Discounting, a model formalized by James Mazur (1987) and validated in over 3,000 experimental studies. The model quantifies the individual 'impatience rate': how quickly a person devalues a future reward compared to an immediate one.

In political context, a high k (high impatience) correlates with preference for short-term policies: immediate tax cuts, one-time subsidies. A low k correlates with support for structural investments: energy transition, pension reform, educational infrastructure. Meta-analyses (Bickel et al., 2014) have shown that the delay discounting rate is the best individual predictor of impulsive behaviors.

Civicamente's algorithm presents real political scenarios — for example: 'Do you prefer a CHF 500 tax cut today, or an investment in renewable energy that will generate CHF 2,000 in savings over 10 years?' — to calculate the individual k parameter with psychometric precision.

Mazur's Formula (1987)

V = A / (1 + kD)

VV — Subjective perceived value of the future reward

AA — Objective value of the reward (unchanged)

kk — Individual temporal discount rate (higher = more impatient)

DD — Temporal delay (in days, months, or years)

Delay discounting simulator

Impatience rate (k): 0.05

Patient (Long-term)Impatient (Short-term)

Years to wait (D): 5

1 anno30 anni

V = 2000 / (1 + 0.05 × 5)

CHF 1600,00

Perceived current value (V)

0CHF 2000,00 (Investimento Iniziale)

Academic References

James E. Mazur·An Adjusting Procedure for Studying Delayed Reinforcement(1987, Quantitative Analyses of Behavior, Vol. 5)

Warren K. Bickel et al.·Excessive Discounting of Delayed Reinforcers as a Trans-Disease Process(2014, Psychopharmacology)

George Ainslie·Picoeconomics: The Strategic Interaction of Successive Motivational States(1992, Cambridge University Press)

Sources and interpretation limits

Civicamente offers an educational self-assessment. Theoretical references do not constitute independent validation of its score. The Civic ID is not an official document and does not affect voting rights. Results from voluntary participants do not represent the whole population.