Aspects of compulsiveness are inversely related to rates of delay discounting.

Abstract

Within behavioral psychology, self control can be defined as choosing a larger, but more delayed, reinforcing consequence over a smaller, but more immediately available, reinforcing consequence (see Logue, 1995, for a review). Making the opposite choice, that is choosing the smaller, immediately available consequence over a larger, more delayed reinforcing consequence, would be considered an impulsive response. Although there is nothing inherently good or bad about making either type of response, researchers and practitioners have certainly been interested in promoting the display of self control. Reasons for this promotion include the finding that children who display the ability to make a self-control response experience better life outcomes (e.g., greater academic achievement) than do children who display impulsive responding (e.g., Mischel, Shoda, & Rodriquez, 1989). More specifically, preschool children who could refrain from eating a marshmallow in return for getting multiple marshmallows at a later time demonstrated higher scholastic performance and social skills as adolescents than did preschool children who displayed the impulsive response and ate the immediately available marshmallow. A concept related to impulsive responding is temporal, or delay, discounting. Delay discounting refers to the process by which the subjective value of a reinforcing outcome is diminished because its delivery is delayed. The typical finding is that the longer the delay to the delivery of the outcome, the lower the subjective value the individual places on that outcome at the given moment (see Madden & Bickel, 2010, for discussion on the measurement, analysis, and scope of delay discounting). How steeply the subjective value of the outcome decreases as the delay to the full outcome is increased is referred to as the at which that particular individual discounts that out come. (1) The rate of discounting has also been used as a behavioral measure of impulsivity. Rates of delay discounting have interested researchers because they have been shown to be associated with a number of behavioral disorders such as attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder (see Williams, 2010) and substance abuse (see Yi, Mitchell, & Bickel, 2010). Steep rates of delay discounting have also been associated with pathological gambling (Dixon, Marley, & Jacobs, 2003; see Petry & Madden, 2010). This association may not be surprising, given that pathological gambling can be found listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) under impulse-control disorders that are not otherwise classified. This classification also includes a number of disorders that were at one time considered as compulsive behaviors (e.g., addiction; see Hollander, Berlin, & Stein, 2011, for a discussion). In fact, one can still find references in the literature to terms such as compulsive gambling (e.g., Munoz, Chebat, & Suissa, 2010). Although one can find examples of impulsiveness and compulsiveness being used interchangeably, the exact relationship between compulsive and impulsive behaviors is not clear. Given that a measure of impulsivity (i.e., delay discounting) has been associated with disorders that are considered to involve impulse control (e.g., pathological gambling) and those same disorders are, or at least have been, considered compulsive, then one might predict that impulsivity and compulsiveness would be directly related. In fact, some evidence exists to support the idea that similar neural mechanisms are involved in impulse-control disorders and compulsive behaviors (e.g., Voon et al., 2010). Compulsiveness, however, can involve a preoccupation with certain behaviors or thoughts (Kagan & Squires, 1985). Depending on the preoccupation, one might predict that compulsiveness favors the self-control, rather than the impulsive, response. …