Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T00:36:18.708Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Drugs' rapid payoffs distort evaluation of their instrumental uses1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2011

George Ainslie
George Ainslie
Affiliation:
Department of Commerce, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701, South Africa; 151 Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Coatesville, PA 19320. george.ainslie@va.govpicoeconomics.org
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Science has needed a dispassionate valuation of psychoactive drugs, but a motivational analysis should be conducted with respect to long-term reward rather than reproductive fitness. Because of hyperbolic overvaluation of short-term rewards, an individual's valuation depends on the time she forms it and the times she will revisit it, sometimes making her best long-term interest lie in total abstinence.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 34 , Issue 6 , December 2011 , pp. 311 - 312
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1.

This commentary is the result of work supported with resources and the use of facilities at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Coatesville, PA. It is considered a work of the U.S. government and as such is not subject to copyright within the United States.

References

Ainslie, G. (2001) Breakdown of will. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ainslie, G. (2010) Hyperbolic discounting versus conditioning and framing as the core process in addictions and other impulses. In: What is addiction? ed. Ross, D., Kincaid, H., Spurrett, D. & Collins, P., pp. 211–45. MIT.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Austin, G. A. (1978) Perspectives on the history of psychoactive substance abuse. National Institute on Drug Abuse.Google Scholar
Gibbon, J. (1977) Scalar expectancy theory and Weber's law in animal timing. Psychological Review 84:279–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammersley, R. & Reid, M. (2002) Why the pervasive addiction myth is still believed. Addiction Research and Theory 10:7–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heyman, G. M. (2009) Addiction: A disorder of choice. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hofmeyr, A., Ainslie, G., Charlton, R. & Ross, D. (2010) The relationship between addiction and reward: An experiment comparing smokers and non-smokers. Addiction 106:402–09.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roizen, R. (1987) The great controlled-drinking controversy. In: Recent developments in alcoholism, vol. 5, ed. Galanter, M., pp. 245–87. Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar