title: Favorable associations with alcohol and impaired self-regulation: A behavioral economic analysis.
abstract: Recent research has demonstrated that both poor self-regulation and favorable implicit associations toward alcohol can play important roles in predicting drinking. Less well studied, however, is how the interplay between implicit associations and self-regulation may impact decisions about alcohol consumption. Behavioral economics is one important tool that may provide insight into the cognitive processes that impact demand for alcohol and drinking decisions.
  
  
  
  Healthy young adult participants completed an Implicit Association Task (IAT) that measured the strength of associations between approach/avoid attributes and target alcohol/neutral images. Impaired self-regulation was assessed by a classic delay discounting task. Participants also completed an Alcohol Purchase Task (APT), which yields multiple behavioral economic indices, chief among which are intensity (the number of drinks a participant would consume if the drinks were free) and elasticity (the degree to which an increased per-drink price impacts the number of drinks consumed in a hypothetical drinking situation). Finally, participants completed a timeline follow-back assessment of past-90-day drinking.
  
  
  
  Findings indicated that implicit approach associations toward alcohol predicted increased demand for alcohol on the APT. Although delay discounting did not have a direct effect on demand for alcohol, there was a significant interaction between IAT and delay discounting, such that higher implicit alcohol approach associations predicted particularly high demand for alcohol among participants with poorer self-regulation. APT and IAT, in turn, predicted self-reported drinking behavior.
  
  
  
  These results suggest that favorable attitudes toward alcohol, together with poor self-regulation, can significantly impact drinking decisions in healthy young adults.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The City College of New York, The City University of New York, North Academic Center, 160 Convent Avenue, New York, NY 10031, United States.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Luehring-Jones
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Hunter College, The City University of New York, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065, United States; Department of Psychology, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States.
authors.forename: Tracy A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Dennis-Tiwary
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The University of Memphis, 400 Innovation Drive, Memphis, TN 38152, United States.
authors.forename: James G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Murphy
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The University of Memphis, 400 Innovation Drive, Memphis, TN 38152, United States.
authors.forename: Ashley
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dennhardt
authors.affiliation: Center for the Study of Health & Risk Behaviors, University of Washington, School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, 1100 NE 45th Street, Suite 300, Seattle, WA 98105, United States.
authors.forename: Kristen P
authors.initials: KP
authors.lastname: Lindgren
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Hunter College, The City University of New York, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065, United States.
authors.forename: Devorah E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Yarmush
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Hunter College, The City University of New York, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065, United States; Department of Psychology, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States. Electronic address: jerblich@hunter.cuny.edu.
authors.forename: Joel
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Erblich
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000191:economics / Q000523:psychology*; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology; D001290:Attitude; D003132:Commerce / Q000191:economics; D065786:Delay Discounting / Q000502:physiology; D060909:Economics, Behavioral; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D000068356:Self-Control / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Alcohol; Alcohol purchase task; Behavioral economics; Delay discounting; Implicit association task; Timeline follow-Back