A multiple‐stimulus‐without‐replacement assessment for sexual partners: Purchase task validation

Abstract

The current study developed and tested a multiple-stimulus-without-replacement (MSWO) assessment for potential sexual partners for use in research on human immunodeficiency virus. College students (N = 41) first completed an MSWO assessment and then completed a hypothetical purchase task for encounters with partners identified by the MSWO as high, median, and low preference. Overall, hypothetical purchase task responding was consistent with that from the MSWO, in that the highest valuation was observed for the high-preference partner and the lowest for the low-preference partner. Potentially interesting individual differences in purchase task responding, however, were obtained; some subjects showed differentiated responding among the 3 preference levels (n = 15), whereas others similarly valued high- and median-preference partners (n = 5), and others similarly valued low- and median-preference partners (n = 18).

Using Arousal Suppression Exercises to Decrease Inappropriate Sexual Arousal in Detained Adolescent Males: Three Clinical Demonstrations

“…Preference Assessment Based on the procedures described by DeLeon and Iwata (1996) and Jarmolowicz et al (2016), ABA therapists conducted an MSWO preference assessment with each participant. For Joseph and Terry, each preference assessment session contained five pictures of celebrities the participant had previously identified as sexually attractive and two pictures of celebrities the participant had previously identified as not sexually attractive.…”

“…Sexual behavior, which includes sexual arousal, may show similar relations between selfreport and overt behavior (e.g., stimulus selections). Jarmolowicz et al (2016) examined the extent to which selections made on a picture-based multiple-stimulus without-replacement (MSWO) preference assessment for sexual partners correlated with behavioral indices through a hypothetical purchase task. In the purchase task, researchers asked participants a series of questions involving different monetary values for sexual acts with the differently ranked partners.…”

Behavioral economics and safe sex: Examining condom use decisions from a reinforcer pathology framework

“…In so doing, this allows the study of historically difficult‐to‐examine choice structures (e.g., drug use) and yields a method well‐suited for examination of sexual decisions and condom use. Jarmolowicz et al (2016), for example, leveraged the utility of behavioral economics to examine how undergraduate students' preference assessment outcomes for hypothetical sexual partners impacted willingness to engage in hypothetical sexual acts at varying costs. Results, while mixed, generally showed participant willingness to engage in hypothetical sexual acts was a function of the hypothetical partner preference hierarchy, with more sexual acts being desired with higher rated partners.…”

The condom purchase task: A hypothetical demand method for evaluating sexual health decision‐making

“…The clinical utility of the procedure has also been demonstrated wherein demand measures have been used to identify behavioral mechanisms underlying effective interventions (Bujarski, MacKillop, & Ray, 2012;McClure, Vandrey, Johnson, & Stitzer, 2013) or functioned as prognostic variables predictive of treatment efficacy (MacKillop & Murphy, 2007;Murphy et al, 2015). Preliminary work has also used the commodity purchase task to evaluate behaviors related to sexual health decision-making (Jarmolowicz, Lemley, Mateos, & Sofis, 2016;Mulhauser, Short, & Weinstock, 2018). The first of these studies found that higher partner desirability was related to greater valuation for hypothetical sexual encounters (Jarmolowicz et al, 2016).…”

“…Preliminary work has also used the commodity purchase task to evaluate behaviors related to sexual health decision-making (Jarmolowicz, Lemley, Mateos, & Sofis, 2016;Mulhauser, Short, & Weinstock, 2018). The first of these studies found that higher partner desirability was related to greater valuation for hypothetical sexual encounters (Jarmolowicz et al, 2016). The second demonstrated that pornography demand was temporally reliable and associated with measures of hypersexuality, primarily for pornography consumption at free or low cost (Mulhauser et al, 2018).…”