title: Impulsivity and cigarette smoking: discounting of monetary and consumable outcomes in current and non-smokers.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In delay discounting, temporally remote rewards have less value. Cigarette smoking is associated with steeper discounting of delayed money. The generality of this to nonmonetary outcomes, however, is unknown.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We sought to determine whether cigarette smokers also show steep discounting of other delayed outcomes.
  
  
  METHODS
  Sixty-five participants (32 smokers and 33 non-smokers) completed four delay-discounting tasks, each involving different hypothetical outcomes. In the monetary task, participants indicated their preference for a smaller amount of money available immediately (titrated across trials) and $100 awarded at delays ranging from 1 week to 25 years (tested in blocks). In the three other discounting tasks the larger-later reward was $100 worth of a favorite food, alcoholic drink, or a favorite form of entertainment. All other aspects of these discounting tasks were identical to the monetary discounting task.
  
  
  RESULTS
  As previously shown, smokers discounted delayed money more steeply than non-smokers did. In addition, smokers discounted delayed food and entertainment rewards more steeply than did nonsmokers. A person's discounting of one outcome was correlated with discounting of other outcomes. Non-smokers discounted money less steeply than all other outcomes; smokers discounted money significantly less than food.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  When compared to nonsmokers, cigarette smokers more steeply discount several types of delayed outcomes. This result, together with the finding that cross-commodity discounting rates were correlated within subjects, suggests that delay discounting is a trait that extends across domains.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Utah State University, 2810 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT, 84322, USA.
authors.forename: Jonathan E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Friedel
authors.forename: William B
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: DeHart
authors.forename: Gregory J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Madden
authors.forename: Amy L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Odum
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002755:Choice Behavior; D065786:Delay Discounting; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007175:Impulsive Behavior; D008297:Male; D012201:Reward; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology*; D012927:Social Control, Informal; D014029:Tobacco Use Disorder / Q000523:psychology*