Using Crowdsourcing to Examine Behavioral Economic Measures of Alcohol Value and Proportionate Alcohol Reinforcement

作者：Morris Vanessa; Amlung Michael^*; Kaplan Brent A; Reed Derek D; Petker Tashia; MacKillop James

来源：Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 2017, 25(4): 314-321.

DOI：10.1037/pha0000130

• behavioral economics
• demand
• relative reinforcement
• online crowdsourcing
• alcohol

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 (similar to 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, O-max, 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.

• 出版日期2017-8
• 单位Virginia Tech; 美国弗吉尼亚理工大学(Virginia Tech)