Department of Applied Behavioral Science, University of Kansas.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Exp Clin Psychopharmacol. 2021 Aug;29(4):295-301. doi: 10.1037/pha0000421. Epub 2020 Jul 16.
Factors influencing drug consumption can be effectively evaluated in the context of behavioral economic demand. Specifically, hypothetical purchase tasks (HPTs) allow for estimated drug consumption at a range of prices in which drug administration is not ethically or feasibly possible. With the marked increase of HPTs in behavioral research, understanding methodological influences on responding is paramount. One such methodological consideration is the price sequence, which can be presented in a fixed, ascending order or a randomized sequence. This study compared fixed and fully randomized sequence order with college student drinkers using a within-subjects design. Self-reported consumption revealed that despite some small differences between the fixed and random sequences, consumption preferences were highly similar, regardless of presentation order. These results suggest participants are likely not anchoring their responses to the prior price on a fixed-order sequence. We conclude with a discussion on how these findings provide implications for HPTs and future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
影响药物消费的因素可以在行为经济需求的背景下进行有效评估。具体来说，假设购买任务（HPT）允许在一系列价格下估算药物消费，而药物管理在伦理上或实际上是不可能的。随着 HPT 在行为研究中的显著增加，了解对反应有影响的方法学因素至关重要。其中一个方法学考虑因素是价格序列，可以以固定的、递增的顺序或随机的顺序呈现。本研究使用被试内设计比较了固定和完全随机序列顺序与大学生饮酒者。自我报告的消费情况表明，尽管固定序列和随机序列之间存在一些微小差异，但无论呈现顺序如何，消费偏好都非常相似。这些结果表明，参与者不太可能将他们的反应固定在固定顺序的前一个价格上。我们最后讨论了这些发现对 HPT 和未来研究的意义。
