Two studies compared participants, distinguished by their typical alcohol consumption, on the degree to which they discounted the value of delayed, hypothetical amounts of money. Heavy social drinkers in Study 1 and problem drinkers in Study 2 both showed greater temporal discounting than light social drinkers; this difference was stronger in Study 2. Both studies found that a hyperbolic function described temporal discounting more accurately than an exponential function. These results are consistent with extending behavioral theories of intertemporal choice to characterize the determinants of alcohol consumption. The discounting differences also are consistent with more general behavioral economic and economic theories of addiction, although the hyperbolic functional form is inconsistent with the exponential discounting function in economic theory. The drinker groups also differed on impulsiveness and time orientation questionnaires, with light drinkers being less impulsive and more future oriented; however, these measures were not strongly correlated with the measure of temporal discounting.

Behavioral theories of choice predict that substance use is partly a function of the relative value of drugs in relation to other available reinforcers. This study evaluated this hypothesis in the context of predicting drinking outcomes following an alcohol abuse intervention. Participants (N ϭ 54, 69% female, 31% male) were college student heavy drinkers who completed a single-session motivational intervention. Students completed a baseline measure of substance-related and substance-free activity participation and enjoyment. Only women showed a significant reduction in drinking at the 6-month follow-up, and the ratio of substance-related to substance-free reinforcement accounted for unique variance in their drinking outcomes. Women who at baseline derived a smaller proportion of their total reinforcement from substance use showed lower levels of follow-up drinking, even after the authors controlled for baseline drinking level. Male and female participants who reduced their drinking showed increased proportional reinforcement from substance-free activities.

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), a single session of drinking-related feedback intended to reduce heavy drinking and related harm. College student drinkers (N = 99) were assigned to BASICS, an educational intervention, or an assessment-only control group. At 3 months postintervention, there were no overall significant group differences, but heavier drinking BASICS participants showed greater reductions in weekly alcohol consumption and binge drinking than did heavier drinking control and education participants. At 9 months, heavier drinking BASICS participants again showed the largest effect sizes. BASICS participants evaluated the intervention more favorably than did education participants. This study suggests that BASICS may be more efficacious than educational interventions for heavier drinking college students.

Participants (N = 17) chose between smaller, immediate and larger, delayed hypothetical money amounts in two laboratory sessions separated by 1 week. The choice procedure yielded equivalence points at which participants were indifferent between the smaller, immediate and the larger, delayed reward for eight different delays of the larger reward. These equivalence points then were used to estimate temporal discounting parameters according to three different discounting functions. A hyperbolic discounting function accounted for more of the variance than an exponential function, which replicated earlier research . Correlations across sessions showed that the discounting parameters were reliable, and that the equivalence points were reliable for delays greater than 1 month.Many behavioral events involve choosing between acts that have consequences of different value and delay. For example, one must choose between sleeping a bit longer and rising to be at work on time, or between attending a party and studying for an important exam, or between seeking employment after high school and attending college. In each case, one choice option results in a relatively smaller but earlier reward, and the other choice option results in a relatively larger but later reward . Laboratory preparations that model such situations have become critically important in behavioral research on the psychological phenomena of impulsiveness and self-control (e.g., Ainslie, 1975;Rachlin & Green, 1972); choice of the smaller, earlier reward or of the larger, later reward can be labeled as instances of impulsiveness or self-control, respectively. The ubiquity of apparently impulsive choices indicates that persons often behave in ways that serve their short-term rather than their long-term interests.