Behavioral Economic Modeling of Incentivized and Hypothetical Demand Procedures

Abstract ID 92383 Poster Board 302 Self-reported or "hypothetical" behavior is commonly used in human laboratory science to investigate behavioral repertoires of interest that are otherwise difficult to directly observe or present ethical or logistical challenges in measurement. The association between self-report and observed self-administration has not been extensively examined, especially in the context of behavioral economic demand measures. This gap results in an uncertain predictive validity of hypothetical procedures when evaluating novel medications or in other clinical applications. The purpose of this analysis was to evaluate the association of an incentivized and hypothetical behavioral economic demand task collected in a human laboratory study of reduced nicotine cigarette expectancies. Participants who smoke cigarettes daily (N = 21; 9 female) completed one practice and four experimental sessions in which expectancy (labelled "average" versus "very low" nicotine) and nicotine dose (0.80 mg versus 0.03 mg yield) were manipulated (i.e., 104 sessions). Participants arrived to each session in acute nicotine withdrawal and sampled experimental cigarettes. Cigarette use motivation and behavioral economic demand was collected using an incentivized purchase task in which responses were reinforced with purchased cigarettes deducted from an experimental income. A hypothetical purchase task relying on verbal behavior manipulations was also collected. Demand data were evaluated using non-linear modelling and the exponentiated demand equation. Nicotine dose manipulation produced expected physiological effects (e.g., heart rate increases) and reduced nicotine dose and expectation manipulations each reduced perceived nicotine content, p values r = .56, p r = .54, p < .001). Results did not differ based on experimental condition supporting validity of hypothetical data collection across varied pharmacological context. These data broadly support the use of hypothetical arrangements for providing close correspondence to more time-intensive and challenging self-administration procedures. Implementation should ultimately consider the balance of ethical, practical, and logistic restrictions when selecting motivation and demand-related endpoints in human behavioral pharmacology studies. The study was supported by NIH Grant R03DA054098 (PI: Strickland). Study cigarettes were provided by the NIDA Drug Supply Program.