The financial costs of sadness.

We hypothesized a phenomenon that we term myopic misery. According to our hypothesis, sadness increases impatience and creates a myopic focus on obtaining money immediately instead of later. This focus, in turn, increases intertemporal discount rates and thereby produces substantial financial costs. In three experiments, we randomly assigned participants to sad- and neutral-state conditions, and then offered intertemporal choices. Disgust served as a comparison condition in Experiments 1 and 2. Sadness significantly increased impatience: Relative to median neutral-state participants, median sad-state participants accepted 13% to 34% less money immediately to avoid waiting 3 months for payment. In Experiment 2, impatient thoughts mediated the effects. Experiment 3 revealed that sadness made people more present biased (i.e., wanting something immediately), but not globally more impatient. Disgusted participants were not more impatient than neutral participants, and that lack of difference implies that the same financial effects do not arise from all negative emotions. These results show that myopic misery is a robust and potentially harmful phenomenon.

Relations among delay discounting, addictions, and money mismanagement: implications and future directions.

BACKGROUND: Delay discounting is a reduction in the subjective value of a delayed outcome. Elevated delay discounting is a type of impulsivity that is associated with harmful behaviors, including substance abuse and financial mismanagement. METHODS: Elevated delay discounting as related to addiction and financial mismanagement was reviewed from psychological, neurobiological, and behavioral economic perspectives. RESULTS: Addiction and financial mismanagement frequently co-occur, and elevated delay discounting may be a common mechanism contributing to both of these problematic behaviors. CONCLUSIONS: Future research on the relationships between delay discounting, substance abuse, and financial mismanagement can provide important insights for developing improved prevention and treatment strategies.

Impulsivity in the supermarket. Responses to calorie taxes and subsidies in healthy weight undergraduates.

The present study investigated the effect of taxing high-energy dense products and subsidizing low-energy dense products on changes in calorie consumption. More specifically, we hypothesized that 'more impulsive' individuals were less influenced by such pricing strategies compared to 'less impulsive' individuals. Contrary to our hypothesis, results showed that 'more impulsive' individuals adjusted their calorie consumption with regard to price changes whereas 'less impulsive' participants were less influenced by price changes. Furthermore, taxing high-energy dense products was more successful in reducing calorie consumption than subsidizing low-energy dense products.

Psychological factors affecting alcohol use after spinal cord injury.

STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to assess risk factors, including personality and socioeconomic indicators, with alcohol use among persons with spinal cord injury (SCI). SETTING: A large rehabilitation hospital in the Southeastern United States. METHODS: A total of 1549 participants responded to a survey on outcomes after SCI. We used polychotomous logistic regression to assess the relationships of personality and socioeconomic factors with alcohol use. RESULTS: In this study population, 19.3% were heavy drinkers, 29.4% moderate and 51.7% abstinent. Annual household income and education were both associated with heavy alcohol use, with persons with higher income or education more likely to be heavy drinkers. Impulsive sensation seeking, neuroticism-anxiety and aggression-hostility were associated with increased odds of heavy drinking. CONCLUSION: This study adds to the body of evidence indicating a substantial portion of individuals with SCI are heavy drinkers, and that personality and socioeconomic status are associated with heavy drinking.

The effect of retail cigarette pack displays on unplanned purchases: results from immediate postpurchase interviews.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the influence of point-of-sale (POS) cigarette displays on unplanned purchases. METHODS: Intercept interviews were conducted with customers observed purchasing cigarettes from retail outlets featuring POS cigarette displays. Measures included intention to purchase cigarettes prior to entering the store, unprompted and prompted salience of POS tobacco displays, urge to buy cigarettes as a result of seeing the POS display, brand switching and support for a ban on POS cigarette displays. RESULTS: In total, 206 daily smokers aged 18-76 years (90 male, 116 female) were interviewed. Unplanned cigarette purchases were made by 22% of participants. POS displays influenced nearly four times as many unplanned purchases as planned purchases (47% vs 12%, p<0.01). Brand switching was reported among 5% of participants, half of whom were influenced by POS displays. Four times as many smokers were supportive of a ban on POS tobacco displays than unsupportive (49% vs 12%), and 28% agreed that such a ban would make it easier to quit. CONCLUSIONS: POS tobacco displays act as a form of advertising even in the absence of advertising materials. They stimulate unplanned cigarette purchases, play an important role in brand selection and tempt smokers trying to quit. This justifies removing POS tobacco displays from line of sight-something that very few smokers in our sample would object to.

Saving for the future self: neural measures of future self-continuity predict temporal discounting.

Despite increases in the human life span, people have not increased their rate of saving. In a phenomenon known as 'temporal discounting', people value immediate gains over future gains. According to a future self-continuity hypothesis, individuals perceive and treat the future self differently from the present self, and so might fail to save for their future. Neuroimaging offers a novel means of testing this hypothesis, since previous research indicates that self- vs other-judgments elicit activation in the rostral anterior cingulate (rACC). Using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, we predicted and found not only individual differences in rACC activation while rating the current vs future self, but also that individual differences in current vs future self activation predicted temporal discounting assessed behaviorally a week after scanning. In addition to supporting the future self-continuity hypothesis, these findings hold implications for significant financial decisions, such as choosing whether to save for the future or spend in the present.

Economic theory and evidence on smoking behavior of adults.

AIMS: To describe: (i) three alternative conceptual frameworks used by economists to study addictive behaviors: rational, imperfectly rational and irrational addiction; (ii) empirical economic evidence on each framework and specific channels to explain adult smoking matched to the frameworks; and (iii) policy implications for each framework. METHODS: A systematic review and appraisal of important theoretical and empirical economic studies on smoking. RESULTS: There is some empirical support for each framework. For rational and imperfectly rational addiction there is some evidence that anticipated future cigarette prices influence current cigarette consumption, and quitting costs are high for smokers. Smokers are more risk-tolerant in the financial domain than are others and tend to attach a lower value to being in good health. Findings on differences in rates of time preference by smoking status are mixed; however, short-term rates are higher than long-term rates for both smokers and non-smokers, a stylized fact consistent with hyperbolic discounting. The economic literature lends no empirical support to the view that mature adults smoke because they underestimate the probability of harm to health from smoking. In support of the irrationality framework, smokers tend to be more impulsive than others in domains not related directly to smoking, implying that they may be sensitive to cues that trigger smoking. CONCLUSIONS: Much promising economic research uses the imperfectly rational addiction framework, but empirical research based on this framework is still in its infancy.

Delay discounting in currently using and currently abstinent cocaine-dependent outpatients and non-drug-using matched controls.

Higher rates of delay discounting have been consistently noted in substance abusers compared to non-drug-using matched controls. Additional data from some studies comparing discounting rates in current versus former substance abusers suggest that discounting rates may be adaptable and that drug abstinence may be associated with reductions in discounting. The primary purpose of the present study was to determine whether a period of cocaine abstinence (at least 30 days) resulted in altered discounting rates of money in a population of primary cocaine-dependent patients compared to current cocaine users and non-drug-using matched controls. Results suggest that there was no difference in discounting between currently abstinent and currently using cocaine-dependent outpatients. When these two groups were combined, cocaine-dependent patients showed higher discounting rates than non-drug-using matched controls. These data replicate previous work in cocaine-dependent and other substance abusers compared to non-drug-using controls and suggest that a longer period of abstinence may be required to modify discounting in this population.

Discounting of money, health, and freedom in substance abusers and controls.

Impulsivity is implicated in drug dependence, and discounting of delayed events may be an objective indicator of impulsiveness. This study evaluated the manner in which outcomes are devalued over time in drug abusers (n=101) and non-substance abusing controls (n=40). Four conditions were presented in which participants chose between hypothetical outcomes available after various delays or immediately. Two were monetary outcomes, and the other two were non-monetary-months of health or freedom. In all conditions, hyperbolic discounting functions provided a good fit of the data. One hundred dollars were discounted more rapidly than $1000, and freedom was discounted more rapidly than health. Drug abusers discounted all types of delayed outcomes at higher rates than controls, even though they placed equivalent subjective monetary values on freedom and health. Rates of discounting were not correlated across domains. These results replicate prior studies showing that drug abusers discount delayed monetary outcomes more rapidly than controls, and they extend these findings to new domains. The rapid discounting of freedom and health may provide a theoretical framework for understanding illegal and risky health behaviors in drug abusers.

Delay discounting of money and alcohol in actively using alcoholics, currently abstinent alcoholics, and controls.

RATIONALE: Impulsivity is implicated in alcohol dependence, and discounting of delayed rewards may be an objective indicator of impulsiveness. OBJECTIVES: This study evaluated delay discounting functions in alcoholics and controls. It compared discounting rates between different magnitudes ($1000 and $100) and different types (money and alcohol) of rewards. METHODS: Active alcoholics (n = 19), currently abstinent alcoholics (n = 12) and controls (n = 15) indicated preferences for immediate versus delayed rewards using a titration procedure that determined indifference points at various delays. Four conditions were presented, and the delayed rewards in the four conditions were $1000, $100, 150 bottles of an alcoholic beverage, and 15 bottles of an alcoholic beverage. RESULTS: In all three groups across all four conditions, hyperbolic discounting functions provided a good fit of the data. Linear contrasts, predicting the most rapid discounting rates in active alcoholics, intermediary rates in currently abstinent alcoholics, and the least rapid rates in controls, were significant for three of the four conditions. Alcohol was discounted more rapidly than money. CONCLUSIONS: These data provide further evidence of more rapid discounting of delayed rewards in alcohol abusers compared to controls, and especially steep discounting among current users. Rapid discounting of delayed rewards may be a feature related to addictive disorders. A better understanding of how delaying rewards in time impacts their value may have implications for treatment.

Toward a behavioral economic understanding of drug dependence: delay discounting processes.

Behavioral economics examines conditions that influence the consumption of commodities and provides several concepts that may be instrumental in understanding drug dependence. One such concept of significance is that of how delayed reinforcers are discounted by drug dependent individuals. Discounting of delayed reinforcers refers to the observation that the value of a delayed reinforcer is discounted (reduced in value or considered to be worth less) compared to the value of an immediate reinforcer. This paper examines how delay discounting may provide an explanation of both impulsivity and loss of control exhibited by the drug dependent. In so doing, the paper reviews economic models of delay discounting, the empirical literature on the discounting of delayed reinforcers by the drug dependent and the scientific literature on personality assessments of impulsivity among drug-dependent individuals. Finally, future directions for the study of discounting are discussed, including the study of loss of control and loss aversion among drug-dependent individuals, the relationship of discounting to both the behavioral economic measure of elasticity as well as to outcomes observed in clinical settings, and the relationship between impulsivity and psychological disorders other than drug dependence.