Further evidence of close correspondence for alcohol demand decision making for hypothetical and incentivized rewards

Abstract

Alcohol purchase tasks (APTs) are increasingly being used to assess behavioral economic demand for alcohol. Prior studies utilizing APTs have typically assessed demand for hypothetical outcomes, making the extent to which these hypothetical measures reflect preferences when actual rewards are at stake an important empirical question. This study examined alcohol demand across hypothetical and incentivized APTs. Nineteen male heavy drinkers completed two APTs—one for hypothetical alcohol and another in which one randomly-selected outcome was provided. Participants were given an opportunity to consume the alcohol associated with their choice on the incentivized APT during a self-administration period in a simulated bar environment. Results indicated generally close correspondence between APT versions, though participants were more sensitive to increases in price and tended to consume more at low prices on the incentivized version. Estimated consumption on the incentivized APT was highly correlated with the amount of alcohol consumed in the laboratory (r = .87, p < .001), suggesting that APT responses are valid indicators of actual drinking behavior. These results provide further evidence of congruence of demand-based decision-making when rewards are hypothetical vs. actually available. Implications for behavioral economic approaches to addictive behavior and directions for future research are discussed.

Initial development of a brief behavioral economic assessment of alcohol demand.

“…If these results are supported by future research, another step will be to begin piloting this measure using substances other than alcohol, for example in lieu of the existing cigarette purchase task (Acker &, 2013; MacKillop & Tidey, 2011; MacKillop et al, 2008; MacKillop, Brown, et al, 2012). It is also worth noting that all performance was for hypothetical alcohol and money, although preliminary evidence suggestions that APT performance for hypothetical outcomes is similar to consequated outcomes (Amlung, Acker, Stojek, Murphy, & MacKillop, 2012; Amlung & MacKillop, 2015). Of course, this does not necessarily extend to this briefer version.…”

Further examination of the temporal stability of alcohol demand

“…Intensity and O max form a factor labeled amplitude – the amount consumed and spent – and elasticity, breakpoint, O max and P max form a factor labeled persistence – sensitivity of consumption to changing price. Demand estimates generated from HPTs correlate highly with in vivo purchase tasks (Amlung & MacKillop, 2015; Amlung et al, 2012), suggesting strong validity for the self-report task.…”

Unique prediction of cannabis use severity and behaviors by delay discounting and behavioral economic demand

“…A recent popular extension of these methods is the commodity purchase task in which participants report hypothetical or realized commodity consumption across a range of prices per unit of the commodity (Jacobs and Bickel, 1999; MacKillop et al, 2008; Murphy et al, 2009). To date, purchase tasks have been successfully applied to a variety of drugs and drug classes, including alcohol, cannabis, cigarettes, cocaine, opioids, and synthetic cathinones (Amlung and MacKillop, 2015; Aston et al, 2015, 2016; Bruner & Johnson, 2014; Collins et al, 2014; Johnson and Johnson, 2014; MacKillop et al, 2008; Murphy & MacKillop, 2006; Pickover et al, 2016). These studies have demonstrated that commonly used and misused substances follow the same prototypic patterns of consumption as other goods, including decreases in consumption with increases in price, and price ranges at which consumption is sensitive (i.e., elastic) or insensitive (i.e., inelastic) to price change.…”