Kaplan Brent A, Reed Derek D, Murphy James G, Henley Amy J, Reed Florence D DiGennaro, Roma Peter G, Hursh Steven R
Department of Applied Behavioral Science.
Department of Psychology, The University of Memphis.
Exp Clin Psychopharmacol. 2017 Jun;25(3):186-197. doi: 10.1037/pha0000110. Epub 2017 Feb 27.
Hypothetical purchase tasks have advanced behavioral economic evaluations of demand by circumventing practical and ethical restrictions associated with delivering drug reinforcers to participants. Numerous studies examining the reliability and validity of purchase task methodology suggest that it is a valuable method for assessing demand that warrants continued use and evaluation. Within the literature examining purchase tasks, the alcohol purchase task (APT) has received the most investigation, and currently represents the most experimentally validated variant. However, inconsistencies in purchase task methodology between studies exist, even within APT studies, and, to date, none have assessed the influence of experimental economic constraints on responding. This study examined changes in Q0 (reported consumption when drinks are free), breakpoint (price that suppresses consumption), and α (rate of change in demand elasticity) in the presence of different hypothetical durations of access to alcohol in an APT. One hundred seventy-nine participants (94 males, 85 females) from Amazon Mechanical Turk completed 3 APTs that varied in the duration of time at a party (i.e., access to alcoholic beverages) as described in the APT instructions (i.e., vignette). The 3 durations included 5-hr (used by Murphy et al., 2013), 1-hr, and 9-hr time frames. We found that hypothetical duration of access was significantly related to Q0 and breakpoint at the individual level. Additionally, group-level mean α decreased significantly with increases in duration of access, thus indicating relatively higher demand for alcohol with longer durations of access. We discuss implications for conducting hypothetical purchase task research and alcohol misuse prevention efforts. (PsycINFO Database Record
假设性购买任务通过规避与向参与者提供药物强化物相关的实际和伦理限制，推进了对需求的行为经济学评估。众多检验购买任务方法可靠性和有效性的研究表明，它是评估需求的一种有价值的方法，值得继续使用和评估。在研究购买任务的文献中，酒精购买任务（APT）受到的研究最多，目前是实验验证程度最高的变体。然而，即使在APT研究中，不同研究之间的购买任务方法也存在不一致之处，而且迄今为止，尚无研究评估实验经济限制对反应的影响。本研究在APT中考察了在不同假设饮酒时长情况下，Q0（饮料免费时报告的消费量）、断点（抑制消费的价格）和α（需求弹性变化率）的变化。来自亚马逊土耳其机器人平台的179名参与者（94名男性，85名女性）完成了3个APT，如APT说明（即 vignette）中所述，派对时长（即饮用酒精饮料的时长）各不相同。这3种时长包括5小时（Murphy等人在2013年使用）、1小时和9小时。我们发现，在个体层面，假设饮酒时长与Q0和断点显著相关。此外，随着饮酒时长增加，组水平的平均α显著降低，这表明饮酒时长越长，对酒精的需求相对越高。我们讨论了进行假设性购买任务研究和预防酒精滥用工作的意义。（PsycINFO数据库记录）
