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Favorable associations with alcohol and impaired self-regulation: A behavioral economic analysis.
- Source :
-
Drug & Alcohol Dependence . Jun2016, Vol. 163, p172-178. 7p. - Publication Year :
- 2016
-
Abstract
- <bold>Background: </bold>Recent research has demonstrated that both poor self-regulation and favorable implicit associations toward alcohol can play important roles in predicting drinking. Less well studied, however, is how the interplay between implicit associations and self-regulation may impact decisions about alcohol consumption. Behavioral economics is one important tool that may provide insight into the cognitive processes that impact demand for alcohol and drinking decisions.<bold>Methods: </bold>Healthy young adult participants completed an Implicit Association Task (IAT) that measured the strength of associations between approach/avoid attributes and target alcohol/neutral images. Impaired self-regulation was assessed by a classic delay discounting task. Participants also completed an Alcohol Purchase Task (APT), which yields multiple behavioral economic indices, chief among which are intensity (the number of drinks a participant would consume if the drinks were free) and elasticity (the degree to which an increased per-drink price impacts the number of drinks consumed in a hypothetical drinking situation). Finally, participants completed a timeline follow-back assessment of past-90-day drinking.<bold>Results: </bold>Findings indicated that implicit approach associations toward alcohol predicted increased demand for alcohol on the APT. Although delay discounting did not have a direct effect on demand for alcohol, there was a significant interaction between IAT and delay discounting, such that higher implicit alcohol approach associations predicted particularly high demand for alcohol among participants with poorer self-regulation. APT and IAT, in turn, predicted self-reported drinking behavior.<bold>Conclusions: </bold>These results suggest that favorable attitudes toward alcohol, together with poor self-regulation, can significantly impact drinking decisions in healthy young adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 03768716
- Volume :
- 163
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Drug & Alcohol Dependence
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 115549418
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2016.04.017