Delay discounting in current and never-before cigarette smokers: Similarities and differences across commodity, sign, and magnitude.

Abstract

Research has found that nicotine-dependent individuals delay discount monetary gains at a higher rate than matched controls. Delay discount rates, however, have also been found to vary across within-subject variables such as the magnitude of the outcome (e.g., 10 dollars or 1,000 dollars), whether the outcome constitutes a gain or a loss, and the commodity being evaluated (e.g., money or health). The present study comprehensively investigated the differences in delay discounting between current and never-before cigarette smokers and across these within-subject variables. Both groups exhibited a magnitude, sign, and commodity effect. Current smokers' delay discount rates for monetary outcomes, however, were higher than never-before smokers across all magnitudes and both signs. This trend was also found for delayed health outcomes, but failed to reach significance.

Impulsive choice and environmental enrichment: Effects of d-amphetamine and methylphenidate

“…Subjects who consistently choose the smaller immediate reinforcer are said to discount the value of the delayed reinforcer, and it is possible that drug abuse may occur, at least in part, because the beneficial value of drug abstinence is discounted compared to the immediate effects of a drug [21,48]. Accordingly, compared to nonusers, delayed rewards are discounted to a greater extent in users of opioids [40,41,48], alcohol [89], cocaine [17,34,40], methamphetamine [37,56], and cigarettes [4,11,36,55,58,72, but see 47]. It is likely that the increased discounting in drug abusers compared with nonabusers arises from a combination of factors, including higher baseline levels of impulsivity in drug abusers, increases in impulsivity due to acute or chronic drug effects, and common genetic and environmental factors that predispose individuals to both drug abuse and impulsive choice.…”

[Commentary] TIME FOR A CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE ON BEHAVIOUR CHANGE INTERVENTIONS?

“…In the smoking field, there is consistent evidence that time preference-like concepts are related cross-sectionally to current smoking, with smokers tending to place less value on future events than both never and ex-smokers (e.g. [4][5][6][7][8]). The paper by Goto and colleagues contributes to the growing literature that time preference and perspective may also be related to successful smoking cessation [9].…”

Beyond the Shadow of a Trait: Understanding Discounting Through Item-Level Analysis of Personality Scales

“…One of the most discussed contributions pertains to greater levels of discounting among substance abusers than non-drug-using controls. For instance, increased discount rates have been shown across a variety of substances, including alcohol (Petry, 2001a;Vuchinich & Simpson, 1998), cocaine (Coffey, Gudleski, Saladin, & Brady, 2003), heroin (Kirby, Petry, & Bickel, 1999), nicotine (Baker, Johnson, & Bickel, 2003;Bickel, Odum, & Madden, 1999), and opiates (Madden, Bickel, & Jacobs, 1999;Yi, Buchhalter, 1 This is, of course, a simplification of one element of the argument laid out by Plato in the allegory. However, it is unnecessary to fully develop his argument in order to highlight how the idea of shadows can illuminate our understanding of psychological processes.…”