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Using crowdsourcing to examine behavioral economic measures of alcohol value and proportionate alcohol reinforcement.

ABSTRACT: Online crowdsourcing websites such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) are increasingly being used in addictions research. However, there is a relative paucity of such research examining the validity of administering behavioral economic alcohol-related measures, via an online crowdsourcing platform. This study sought to validate an alcohol purchase task (APT) for assessing demand and a questionnaire measure of proportionate alcohol reinforcement, using an online sample of participants recruited via MTurk. Participants (N = 865, 59% female) were recruited via MTurk to complete the APT, proportionate alcohol reinforcement questionnaire, Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), and demographics. Responses on the APT were highly systematic (<3% nonsystematic data) and conformed to prototypical demand curves. Correlation analyses revealed significant associations among AUDIT total scores with a majority of the alcohol demand indices (r values .08-53, p values < .05) as well as proportionate alcohol reinforcement, r = .43, p < .001. Regression analyses controlling for relevant covariates indicated that intensity, BP, Omax, elasticity, and reinforcement ratio predicted significant variance in AUDIT scores. This study further supports the use of online crowdsourcing websites for investigating behavioral economic determinants of alcohol misuse. (PsycINFO Database Record

SUBMITTER: Morris V

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5546925 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Using crowdsourcing to examine behavioral economic measures of alcohol value and proportionate alcohol reinforcement.

Morris Vanessa V Amlung Michael M Kaplan Brent A BA Reed Derek D DD Petker Tashia T MacKillop James J

Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology 20170619 4

Online crowdsourcing websites such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) are increasingly being used in addictions research. However, there is a relative paucity of such research examining the validity of administering behavioral economic alcohol-related measures, via an online crowdsourcing platform. This study sought to validate an alcohol purchase task (APT) for assessing demand and a questionnaire measure of proportionate alcohol reinforcement, using an online sample of participants recruited ...[more]

PMID: 28627926

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Project description:IntroductionPrevious studies have highlighted a strong bidirectional relationship between cigarette and alcohol consumption. To advance our understanding of this relationship the present study uses a behavioral economic approach in a community sample (N = 383) of nontreatment seeking heavy drinking smokers.Aims and methodsThe aims were to examine same-substance and cross-substance relationships between alcohol and cigarette use, and latent factors of demand. A community sample of nontreatment seeking heavy drinking smokers completed an in-person assessment battery including measures of alcohol and tobacco use as well as the Cigarette Purchase Task and the Alcohol Purchase Task. Latent factors of demand were derived from these hypothetical purchase tasks.ResultsResults revealed a positive correlation between paired alcohol and cigarette demand indices (eg, correlation between alcohol intensity and cigarette intensity) (rs = 0.18-0.46, p ≤ .003). Over and above alcohol factors, cigarette use variables (eg, Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence and cigarettes per smoking day) significantly predicted an additional 4.5% (p < .01) of the variance in Persistence values but not Amplitude values for alcohol. Over and above cigarette factors, alcohol use variables predicted cigarette Persistence values (ΔR2 = .013, p = .05), however, did not predict Amplitude values.ConclusionsThese results advance our understanding of the overlap between cigarette and alcohol by demonstrating that involvement with one substance was associated with demand for the other substance. This asymmetric profile-from smoking to alcohol demand, but not vice versa-suggests that it is not simply tapping into a generally higher reward sensitivity and warrants further investigation.ImplicationsTo our knowledge, no study to date has examined alcohol and cigarette demand, via hypothetical purchase tasks, in a clinical sample of heavy drinking smokers. This study demonstrates that behavioral economic indices may be sensitive to cross-substance relationships and specifically that such relationships are asymmetrically stronger for smoking variables affecting alcohol demand, not the other way around.

Project description:BackgroundAlcohol use and abuse constitute a major public health problem and identifying their determinants is a priority. Social network analysis can indicate how characteristics of social networks are related to individual health behaviors. A growing number of studies have used social network analysis to examine how social network characteristics influence adult alcohol consumption, but this literature has never been systematically reviewed and summarized. The current paper systematically reviews empirical studies that used social network analysis to assess the influence of social network characteristics on drinking behaviors in adults.MethodsA literature search of PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO and Web of Science databases and a review of the reference lists of retrieved articles was conducted in March 2019. Two reviewers independently screened 5,510 non-duplicate records, and further screened the full text of 150 articles to determine their eligibility for inclusion. Seventeen articles were judged eligible and included.ResultsMost studies were conducted among young adults (mean age<30), in university settings or follow up visits with adolescent networks moving into adulthood. The objectives and methods of the included studies were heterogeneous. All included studies reported a statistically significant association between a social network characteristic and an alcohol consumption-related outcome. Social network members drinking behaviors were associated with participants' drinking behaviors in multiple ways.DiscussionIn young adults, among whom the majority of identified studies were conducted, with whom they socialize and how they socialize appears to be associated with alcohol consumption; this was observed across methodologies and settings. We still know very little about the relationship of social networks to drinking in older age groups, and in populations most impacted by alcohol. As social networks appear to play a role in the consumption of alcohol in young adulthood, interventions that utilize social networks to help reduce harmful alcohol consumption should be considered.

Dataset Information

Using crowdsourcing to examine behavioral economic measures of alcohol value and proportionate alcohol reinforcement.

Publications

Using crowdsourcing to examine behavioral economic measures of alcohol value and proportionate alcohol reinforcement.

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