Impulsivity The Behavioral and Neurological Science of Discounting

Impulsivity explores the basis for the seemingly universal tendency to devalue rewards or punishments that are not immediately available. When confronted with any number of modern impulsive behaviors—such as drug use, pathological gambling, marital infidelity, and gluttony—individuals have a choice with two outcomes: an immediate benefit, such as getting high, or a delayed or probabilistic benefit, such as health, money saved, or the satisfaction of a good life.

This volume is an approachable, comprehensive overview of the behavioral science and neuroscience of these impulsive choices and their relation to delay discounting—the tendency to devalue temporally distant rewards or punishments, even though they may greatly outbalance the immediate benefit of our choices.

The cutting-edge researchers who contributed to this volume have documented cross-species similarities in impulsive decision making and pioneered the neuroscience of impulsive choice. In this text they provide insights into harmless impulsive acts as well as those that dominate and destroy lives. The contributors tackle key issues such as whether impulsivity and risk taking are a trait or state; the neuroscience, neuroeconomics, and computational modeling of neural systems underlying impulsivity; and the relation between impulsivity and addictions, health decision making, altruism, and attention-deficit disorder.

Theoretical debates regarding the origins of impulsivity round out this text, which will be of interest to researchers and graduate students in psychology, behavioral economics, psychopharmacology, behavioral analysis and therapy, and the science of decision making.

Contributors

Foreword 
—George Loewenstein

Introduction 
—Gregory J. Madden and Warren K. Bickel

I. Methods, Models, and Findings

1. A Delay-Discounting Primer 
   —Gregory J. Madden and Patrick S. Johnson
2. Delay Discounting: State and Trait Variable 
   —Amy L. Odum and Ana A. L. Baumann
3. Experimental and Correlational Analyses of Delay and Probability Discounting 
   —Leonard Green and Joel Myerson

II. Neuroscience of Discounting and Risk-Taking

1. The Neural and Neurochemical Basis of Delay Discounting 
   —Catherine A. Winstanley
2. Neural Models of Delay Discounting 
   —A. David Redish and Zeb Kurth-Nelson
3. Neuroeconomics of Risk-Sensitive Decision Making 
   —Sarah R. Heilbronner, Benjamin Y. Hayden, and Michael L. Platt

III. Discounting and Addictive Disorders

1. Delay Discounting and Substance Abuse–Dependence 
   —Richard Yi, Suzanne H. Mitchell, and Warren K. Bickel
2. Drug Effects on Delay Discounting 
   —Harriet de Wit and Suzanne H. Mitchell
3. Delay Discounting as a Predictor of Drug Abuse 
   —Marilyn E. Carroll, Justin J. Anker, Jami L. Mach, Jennifer L. Newman, and Jennifer L. Perry
4. Discounting and Pathological Gambling 
   —Nancy M. Petry and Gregory J. Madden

IV. Discounting and the Human Condition

1. Role of Time and Delay in Health Decision Making 
   —Jalie A. Tucker, Cathy A. Simpson, and Yulia A. Khodneva
2. Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Discounting: Multiple Minor Traits and States 
   —Jonathan Williams

V. Empirical and Theoretical Extensions

1. The Adaptive Nature of Impulsivity 
   —Jeffrey R. Stevens and David W. Stephens
2. Recursive Self-Prediction as a Proximate Cause of Impulsivity: The Value of a Bottom-Up Model 
   —George Ainslie
3. The Extended Self 
   —Howard Rachlin and Bryan A. Jones

Index

About the Editors

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