Rasmussen Erin B, Camp Lillith, Lawyer Steven R
Department of Psychology, Idaho State University, Stop 8112, Pocatello, ID 83209-8112 USA.
Perspect Behav Sci. 2024 Apr 29;47(2):523-558. doi: 10.1007/s40614-024-00403-7. eCollection 2024 Jun.
Delay discounting (DD) refers to the tendency to devalue an outcome as a function of its delay. Most contemporary human DD research uses hypothetical money to assess individual rates of DD. However, nonmonetary outcomes such as food, substances of misuse, and sexual outcomes have been used as well, and have advantages because of their connections to health. This article reviews the literature on the use of nonmonetary outcomes of food, drugs, and sexual outcomes in relation to health and reinforcer pathologies such as substance use disorders, obesity, and sexual risk behaviors, respectively, and makes a case for their use in discounting research. First, food, substances, and sex may be more ecologically valid outcomes than money in terms of their connections to health problems and reinforcer pathologies. Second, consistent trends in commodity-specific (i.e., domain) effects, in which nonmonetary outcomes are discounted more steeply than money, enhance variation in discounting values. Third, commodity-specific changes in discounting with treatments designed to change health choices are described. Finally, methodological trends such as test-retest reliability, magnitude effects, the use of hypothetical versus real outcomes, and age-related effects are discussed in relation to the three outcome types and compared to trends with monetary discounting. Limitations that center around individual preferences, nonsystematic data, and deprivation are discussed. We argue that researchers can enhance their DD research, especially those related to health problems and reinforcer pathologies, with the use of nonmonetary outcomes. Recommendations for future directions of research are delineated.
延迟折扣（DD）是指根据结果的延迟时间对其进行贬值的倾向。大多数当代人类延迟折扣研究使用假设货币来评估个体的延迟折扣率。然而，诸如食物、滥用物质和性结果等非货币结果也被使用，并且由于它们与健康的关联而具有优势。本文回顾了分别与健康和强化物病理学（如物质使用障碍、肥胖和性风险行为）相关的食物、药物和性结果等非货币结果在折扣研究中的应用文献，并论证了它们在折扣研究中的使用价值。首先，就与健康问题和强化物病理学的关联而言，食物、物质和性可能比货币更具生态效度。其次，特定商品（即领域）效应存在一致趋势，即非货币结果的折扣比货币更陡峭，这增加了折扣值的变化。第三，描述了旨在改变健康选择的治疗方法对特定商品折扣的影响。最后，讨论了诸如重测信度、量级效应、假设结果与实际结果的使用以及年龄相关效应等方法学趋势，并将其与三种结果类型相关联，并与货币折扣趋势进行比较。还讨论了围绕个人偏好、非系统数据和剥夺的局限性。我们认为，研究人员可以通过使用非货币结果来加强他们的延迟折扣研究，特别是那些与健康问题和强化物病理学相关的研究。文中还阐述了未来研究方向的建议。
