Impulsivity and cigarette smoking: discounting of monetary and consumable outcomes in current and non-smokers

RATIONALE: In delay discounting, temporally remote rewards have less value. Cigarette smoking is associated with steeper discounting of delayed money. The generality of this to nonmonetary outcomes, however, is unknown. OBJECTIVES: We sought to determine whether cigarette smokers also show steep discounting of other delayed outcomes. METHODS: Sixty-five participants (32 smokers and 33 non-smokers) completed four delay-discounting tasks, each involving different hypothetical outcomes. In the monetary task, participants indicated their preference for a smaller amount of money available immediately (titrated across trials) and $100 awarded at delays ranging from 1 week to 25 years (tested in blocks). In the three other discounting tasks the larger-later reward was $100 worth of a favorite food, alcoholic drink, or a favorite form of entertainment. All other aspects of these discounting tasks were identical to the monetary discounting task. RESULTS: As previously shown, smokers discounted delayed money more steeply than non-smokers did. In addition, smokers discounted delayed food and entertainment rewards more steeply than did nonsmokers. A person’s discounting of one outcome was correlated with discounting of other outcomes. Non-smokers discounted money less steeply than all other outcomes; smokers discounted money significantly less than food. CONCLUSIONS: When compared to nonsmokers, cigarette smokers more steeply discount several types of delayed outcomes. This result, together with the finding that cross-commodity discounting rates were correlated within subjects, suggests that delay discounting is a trait that extends across domains.