Reward discounting as a measure of impulsive behavior in a psychiatric outpatient population.
Impulsivity has been operationalized as a choice of an immediate smaller reward over a larger delayed or uncertain reward. This study examined a procedure that measures reward preference under these contingencies in psychiatric outpatients considered either at a high or low risk for engaging in impulsive behavior depending on their psychiatric diagnoses. The participants' rates of delay and uncertainty reward discounting were compared with their performances on a behavioral inhibition task and responses on a self-report personality impulsivity measure. The high-risk participants discounted delayed rewards more sharply and scored higher on the self-report impulsivity measure relative to the low-risk participants. Delay and uncertainty discounting were modestly correlated, but no other relationships were found between the other measures. Results from this study indicate that delay-discounting tasks may be sensitive to at least one form of impulsive behavior.
Crean
J P
JP
Department of Psychiatry, The University of Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
de Wit
H
H
Richards
J B
JB
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007175:Impulsive Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D010045:Outpatients; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012201:Reward; D012307:Risk Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires