Delay and probabilistic discounting of alcoholic beverages

Author

Frank L. Galante, James Madison UniversityFollow

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Date of Graduation

Spring 2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science (BS)

Department

Department of Psychology

Advisor(s)

Daniel D. Holt

Abstract

Discounting tasks were used to determine the degree to which college undergraduates discounted delayed and probabilistic alcoholic beverages. Tasks were framed in terms of gains (i.e.,obtaining a hypothetical amount of alcohol) and losses (i.e., losing a hypothetical amount of alcohol). In all gain and loss conditions, discounting was evident and was generally well described by a hyperboloid function. Gains were discounted more steeply then losses. There were no correlations between the median delay gain discounting rates and the median delay loss discounting rates. Likewise, there were no correlations between the median probabilistic gain discounting rates and the median probabilistic loss discounting rates. This pattern of results suggests that each condition is independent from one another, operating under a separate set of mental processes. Future studies with a larger sample size are necessary to validate these findings.

Recommended Citation

Galante, Frank L., "Delay and probabilistic discounting of alcoholic beverages" (2015). Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019. 91.
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/honors201019/91