Impact of depressive tendency on intertemporal decision-making in college students: the moderated mediation effects of perceived stress and self-control

Abstract Objective: To decipher the impact of perceived stress and self-control on intertemporal decision-making among college students with depressive tendencies, so as to understand the underlying psychological mechanisms through which depressive tendency influenced decision-making, thereby providing theoretical foundation for promoting psychological recovery in depressed students and enhancing their decision-making through educational interventions. Methodology: This study employed an online questionnaire survey, with the collection of 1,469 responses totally. There were 436 valid questionnaires with a depressive tendency score greater than 10 after the exclusion of incomplete and invariant responses. Descriptive analysis, correlation analysis, regression analysis, and moderated mediation tests were adopted to explore the relationships of depressive tendency, perceived stress and self-control with intertemporal decision-making. Result: Depressive tendency correlated negatively with intertemporal decision-making obviously. Perceived stress played a mediating role between depressive tendency and intertemporal decision-making, while self-control ability further act as a mediated moderator between perceived stress and intertemporal decision-making. Conclusion: Depressive tendency leads to the preference of college students to smaller immediate rewards, which may be the underlying psychological factor that influence their intertemporal decision-making. It can be interpreted that due to the presence of depression, there may be higher perceived stress, which in turn impairs self-control and affects decision-making. Therefore, in the educational practice to enhance the decision-making ability of college students, cultivation and training can be carried out in aspects such as maintaining positive emotions, strengthening stress management, and improving self-control ability.