Derek D Reed

University of Kansas | KU · Department of Applied Behavioral Science

Many adults engage in ultraviolet indoor tanning despite evidence of its association with skin cancer. The constellation of behaviors associated with ultraviolet indoor tanning is analogous to that in other behavioral addictions. Despite a growing literature on ultraviolet indoor tanning as an addiction, there remains no consensus on how to identif...

Although humans do not always respond rationally, decades of behavioral economic research have brought order to these irrational patterns of responding, particularly in individuals whose maladaptive behavior and the neurobiological dysregulation that presumably undergirds it directly impact their health (drug addiction and obesity). These findings...

Advances in behavioral economic research methodology have generated novel insights into public policy considerations regarding substance use and addiction. A major advancement toward this end was the development of hypothetical purchase tasks (HPTs) that permit modeling of consumption and demand without the need for actual purchases and lengthy hum...

Many everyday choices are associated with both delayed and probabilistic outcomes. The temporal attention hypothesis suggests that individuals’ decision making can be improved by focusing attention on temporally distal events and implies that environmental manipulations that bring temporally distal outcomes into focus may alter an individual’s degr...

Functional analyses are used to assess maintaining variables of behavior. Despite the large amount of research on functional analyses with humans, there are limited examples with nonhumans and even fewer studies incorporating modifications to standard methods of assessment with nonhumans. One modification that has yet to be evaluated with nonhuman...

Delay discounting refers to the devaluation of an outcome as temporal delay increases. Steep discounting is characterized by preferring a smaller, immediate outcome over a larger, delayed outcome and is associated with maladaptive behaviors such as tobacco use. Previous studies have compared delay discounting outcomes between combustible cigarette...

INTRODUCTION Considering recent and proposed bans on menthol cigarettes, methods are needed to understand the substitutability of potential menthol cigarette alternatives (MCAs) for menthol cigarettes. This study examined the prospective relationship between behavioral economic demand indices and subjective effects of usual brand menthol cigarettes...

In this meta-analysis, we describe a benchmark value of delay and probability discounting reliability and stability that might be used to (a) evaluate the meaningfulness of clinically achieved changes in discounting and (b) support the role of discounting as a valid and enduring measure of intertemporal choice. We examined test-retest reliability,...

Preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) prevents human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) but not other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Men who have sex with men (MSM) who take PrEP tend to report reduced condom use, but little is known about the underlying mechanisms. For this study, MSM who take PrEP (i.e., PrEP experienced; n = 88) and MSM who do not (...

Behavioral economic frameworks emphasize the importance of contextual influences on alcohol use; therefore, identifying relative demand for alcohol versus other commodities is of importance. Cross-commodity purchase tasks allow participants to make choices across multiple concurrently available commodities and can thereby pinpoint interactions amon...

Introduction: Research reports a robust association between combustible cigarette use and alcohol use frequency and severity. Extension to the emerging landscape of electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) use is needed to inform prevention and treatment strategies. Method: We evaluated data from the 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health...

The use of autoclitics can influence the behavior of individuals making choices when responding to a survey (e.g., checking or unchecking a box). In two studies, we investigated the effects of autoclitics as “nudges” on choice by manipulating different frames (opt-in and opt-out) and default options (i.e., unchecked and checked boxes). Undergraduat...

This review sought to synthesize the literature on the reliability and validity of behavioral-economic measures of demand and discounting in human research, introduce behavioral-economic research methodologies for studying addictive behaviors, discuss gaps in the current literature, and review areas for future research. A total of 34 studies was in...

This review aimed to synthesize the literature on the reliability and validity of behavioral economic measures of demand and discounting in human research, introduce behavioral economic research methodologies for studying addictive behaviors, discuss gaps in the current literature, and review areas for future research. A total of 34 studies were in...

The reinforcer pathology model posits that core behavioral economic mechanisms, including delay discounting and behavioral economic demand, underlie adverse health decisions and related clinical disorders. Extensions beyond substance use disorder and obesity, however, are limited. Using a reinforcer pathology framework, this study evaluates medical...

Culturo-behavior science addresses many of the world's most significant problems and therefore has potential to create world-changing outcomes. Before systems level changes that improve the world can be implemented, however, it is first necessary for the public to know about and take interest in the accomplishments of culturo-behavior science. Meas...

Communicating research findings requires engaging in ethical behaviors described by scientific and practice communities. Disseminators should be aware of guidelines prescribed by communities and engage in behaviors that produce socially desirable outcomes for listeners and readers. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss ethical conduct related t...

Policy drives community-level behavior change, so behavior analysts should aid empirical policy development. University campus regulation is a useful proxy for broader policy initiatives and thus is a convenient inroad for behavior analyst involvement. This paper examines behavior analytic contributions to the planning and evaluation of a universit...

Behavioral economic demand models quantify the extent to which an organism defends its consumption of a commodity. Commodity purchase tasks permit humans a quick yet psychometrically sound approach to assessing commodity demand for various retail products. Operant behavioral economic literature suggests economy type (open vs closed) can significant...

Individuals with alcohol use disorder may excessively value alcohol reinforcement over other types of rewards and may seek out environments supportive of alcohol consumption despite negative consequences. Therefore, examining ways to increase engagement in substance-free activities may be useful in treating alcohol use disorder. Past research has f...

Consumers decide what to purchase, under conditions of constraint (e.g., commodity price). According to behavioral economic demand, commodity purchase task (CPT) can measure hypothetical decisions about purchases under varied simulated policy conditions (e.g., introduction of new cigarette taxes, happy hour drinking specials). These tasks permit ra...

Increasing vaccine utilization is critical for numerous diseases, including COVID-19, necessitating novel methods to forecast uptake. Behavioral economic methods have been developed as rapid, scalable means of identifying mechanisms of health behavior engagement. However, most research using these procedures is cross-sectional and evaluates predict...

The Ideal Free Distribution suggests the relative allocation of the number of organisms foraging across two or more resource sites will match the relative density of reinforcement patches in those resource sites. This initial project sought to develop a new method of foraging research for dogs by using a commercially available treat dispenser in ba...

Crowdsourcing platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk, Prolific, and Qualtrics Panels have become a dominant form of sampling in recent years. Crowdsourcing enables researchers to effectively and efficiently sample research participants with greater geographic variability, access to hard-to-reach populations, and reduced costs. These methods have...

We examined if the relative-reinforcing effects of smoking increase with greater cumulative vulnerability and whether cumulative vulnerability moderates response to reduced nicotine content cigarettes. Participants were 775 adults from randomized clinical trials evaluating research cigarettes differing in nicotine content (0.4, 2.4, 15.8 mg/g). Par...

Objective: In the context of behavioral economics, drug use is a choice to which an individual may allocate responding despite the presence of alternative response possibilities. To examine the demand for a drug in an environment in which other drugs or nondrug alternatives are present, researchers often use a cross-commodity purchase task. These...

Operant behavioral economic methods are increasingly used in basic research on the efficacy of reinforcers as well as in large-scale applied research (e.g., evaluation of empirical public policy). Various methods and strategies have been put forward to assist discounting researchers in conducting large-scale research and detecting irregular respons...

Behavioral economics is an approach to understanding behavior though integrating behavioral psychology and microeconomic principles. Advances in behavioral economics have resulted in quick-to-administer tasks to assess discounting (i.e., decrements in the subjective value of a commodity due to delayed or probabilistic receipt) and demand (i.e., eff...

The role of human behavior to thwart transmission of infectious diseases like COVID-19 is evident. Psychological and behavioral science are key areas to understand decision-making processes underlying engagement in preventive health behaviors. Here we adapt well validated methods from behavioral economic discounting and demand frameworks to evaluat...

Behavioral economics offers unique tools for assessing value and motivation associated with college drinking. Tasks that model changes in consumption as a function of price (operant demand) or the decline in an outcome’s subjective value as a function of time-to-occurrence (delay discounting) provide valuable information that may efficiently supple...

Recentemente, a economia comportamental tem ganhado bastante atenção na psicologia e nas políticas públicas. Apesar do aumento do interesse e a condução de estudos básicos experimentais, a aplicação da economia comportamental em ambientes terapêuticos ainda é esparsa. Usando exemplos de estudos básicos e aplicados, nós apresentamos uma visão geral...

Background: Delay discounting assessments typically involve choices between an immediate outcome and a larger amount of the same outcome after a delay. Real-world choices, however, more often involve qualitatively different alternatives. The primary aim of this study was to examine single- and cross-commodity discounting of money, alcohol, and cann...

Condom use substantially reduces unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. While condom availability is a significant public health priority, effects of condom availability constraints remain relatively under‐researched. The limited research on condom availability suggests two major barriers to use: (1) effort/costs and (2) delay to...

A large proportion of individuals who use psychoactive substances regularly use more than one substance. This pattern of behavior, termed polysubstance use, is associated with greater risks than when consuming only a single substance. The present study examined delay discounting, neurocognitive functioning, and demographic indicators among a large,...

The world is now believed to be operating in a no-analogue state, exceeding the norms of any point in documented history. Substantial disturbance of our natural environmental systems threatens life on Earth. Innovation and change are critical. Social science has historically played a vital role in amassing a body of knowledge implicating potential...

A large proportion of individuals who use psychoactive substances regularly use more than one substance. This pattern of behavior, termed polysubstance use, is associated with greater risks than when consuming only single substance. The present study examined delay discounting, neurocognitive functioning, and demographic indicators among a large, r...

Contemporary approaches for evaluating the demand for reinforcers use either the Exponential or the Exponentiated model of operant demand, both derived from the framework of Hursh and Silberberg (2008). This report summarizes the strengths and complications of this framework and proposes a novel implementation. This novel implementation incorporate...

The role of human behavior to thwart transmission of infectious diseases like COVID-19 is evident. Yet, many areas of psychological and behavioral science are limited in the ability to mobilize to address exponential spread or provide easily translatable findings for policymakers. Here we describe how integrating methods from operant and cognitive...

In the years ahead, humans will face unprecedented challenges in the realm of sustainable living. Viable solutions will be necessarily technological—advancements in engineering and electronics will be fundamental to a reduced carbon footprint—and behavioral, as neither solution is alone adequate to yield change on a scale necessary to curb the runa...

This study was conducted to evaluate the impact of public perceptions of vaccine safety and efficacy on intent to seek COVID-19 vaccination using hypothetical vaccine acceptance scenarios. The behavioral economic methodology could be used to inform future public health vaccination campaigns designed to influence public perceptions and improve publi...

The reinforcer pathologies model of addiction posits that two characteristic patterns of operant behavior characterize addiction. Specifically, individuals suffering from addiction have elevated levels of behavioral economic demand for their substances of abuse and have an elevated tendency to devalue delayed rewards (reflected in high delay discou...

Factors influencing drug consumption can be effectively evaluated in the context of behavioral economic demand. Specifically, hypothetical purchase tasks (HPTs) allow for estimated drug consumption at a range of prices in which drug administration is not ethically or feasibly possible. With the marked increase of HPTs in behavioral research, unders...

We examined whether elucidating underpinning smoking motivation and related pharmacological processes enhances understanding of nicotine dependence among smokers from vulnerable populations. Data were obtained between Oct, 2016 and Sept, 2019 from 745 adult smokers with co-morbid psychiatric conditions or socioeconomic disadvantage at University of...

Accumulating evidence suggests that the hypothetical Cigarette Purchase Task (CPT), especially its demand Intensity index (i.e., estimated cigarettes participants would smoke if free), is associated with individual differences in smoking risk. Nevertheless, few studies have examined the extent to which hypothetical CPT demand Intensity may differ f...

This brief report provides an account of varying interpretations of elasticity (η) in the operant demand framework. General references to “demand elasticity” have existed since the Exponential model of operant demand was proposed by Hursh and Silberberg (2008). This term has been used interchangeably with Essential Value (EV), PMAX, and the rate of...

The reinforcer pathologies model proposes two behavioral economic constructs interact in addiction: operant demand and delay discounting. These constructs manifest as behavioral markers of addiction in the form of excessive reinforcer value and strong preference for immediate access and consumption of this reinforcer despite suboptimal long-term ou...

Background While using most drugs of abuse is associated with higher than control rates of delay discounting, cannabis use may be the exception. As such, between-commodity differences in delay discounting (i.e., money vs. cannabis) have not been thoroughly examined. We examined these between-commodity differences using modern analytic techniques to...

Heavy drinking among college students is a public health concern in part due to the accessibility of alcohol and promotions such as “happy hours,” which discount the price of alcohol. In addition, consuming alcohol at unregulated off-campus parties may result in greater alcohol consumption, higher blood alcohol concentrations, and increased negativ...

Impulsivity is associated with a host of short‐ and long‐term setbacks in the developmental trajectory. Individuals exhibiting impulsivity—the relative preference for smaller sooner reinforcers over larger delayed reinforcers—are more likely to be less educated, to be prone to addiction and other risky health decisions, and to exhibit higher body m...

These data represent a working attempt to summarize the contributions of behavior analysis to the sustainability movement. The following is a list of all empirical literature focused on sustainable living, as published by primarily behavior analytic journals (i.e., to determine the contributions of behavior analysis only). We've flagged and coded f...

The Cigarette Purchase Task (CPT) is a behavioral economic method for assessing demand for cigarettes. Growing interest in behavioral correlates of tobacco use in clinical and general populations as well as empirical efforts to inform policy has seen an increase in published articles employing the CPT. Accordingly, an examination of the published m...

Underage drinking is a significant public health concern, specifically among college students. The availability of fake IDs increases risks of college binge drinking as well as sexual victimization, providing a call for research on behavioral correlates. The purpose of the present experiment was to determine how much money an underage college sampl...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurodegenerative disorder that causes a wide range of symptoms, which, if left untreated, worsen over time. Despite the availability of effective medications, however, many MS patients fail to take their medications. One possibility is that these patients fail to follow through on treatment recommendations because they...

Importance Delay discounting is a behavioral economic index of impulsive preferences for smaller-immediate or larger-delayed rewards that is argued to be a transdiagnostic process across health conditions. Studies suggest some psychiatric disorders are associated with differences in discounting compared with controls, but null findings have also be...

Tornadoes are atmospheric events capable of massive devastation, involving physical destruction and human casualties. Following the 2011 Joplin, MO tornado that claimed the lives of nearly 160 people, the National Weather Service and National Institute of Standards and Technology concluded that better warning systems would have saved lives. This co...

Hypothetical Purchase Tasks (HPTs) simulate demand for a substance as a function of escalating price. HPTs are increasingly used to examine relationships between substance-related correlates and outcomes and demand typically characterized using a common battery of indices (Intensity, Omax, Pmax, Breakpoint, Elasticity). This review examines the rel...

The present experiments assessed the extent to which mobile electronic and print media interact with operant demand and delay of gratification in preschool children. Participants were six boys recruited from a university-operated preschool. In Phase 1, participants allocated responses to buttons providing access to either a print book at a fixed-pr...

Composting systems are poised to make a significant impact on waste-management strategies and greatly contribute to global sustainability efforts. However, risk of contamination by potentially detrimental compounds must be overcome before these systems can be widely adopted. Behavior analytic approaches to waste disposal adherence have consisted of...

Behavioral economic measures have demonstrated marked success in the evaluation of consumer choice. Field-standard operant demand curve analyses provide a valuable model of resource allocation via responses to maintain "free-rate" commodity use or consumption. This demand analysis thereby provides a behavioral complement to consumer science techniq...

Research applying the behavioral economic demand framework is increasingly conducted across disciplines, as is research on improving the mathematical accuracy of demand metrics. At present, a variety of methods have been introduced to solve for the point of unit elasticity, or PMAX, in the Exponential model of demand; however, most of these methods...

Résumé Objective Previous studies examining associations between elevated behavioural economic alcohol demand and rates of driving after drinking (DAD) have primarily focused on university students in the United States. It is unclear whether similar associations exist in community adults and in other locations. Furthermore, the role of proportiona...

Background: Nicotine is the addictive component in cigarettes that maintain cigarette smoking that subsequently leads to morbidity and mortality. Methods for assessing the abuse liability of cigarettes are essential to inform new tobacco product standards. This secondary analysis evaluated the utility of one subjective effects measure, the modifie...

Two common behavioral economic simulation tasks used to study cigarette smoking are the Cigarette Purchase Task, a measure of cigarette demand, and delay discounting, a measure of the subjective value of rewards as a function of delays to delivery. Few studies have evaluated whether combining these tasks enhances understanding of smoking beyond eit...

Published in Perspectives on Behavior Science. beezdemand: Behavioral Economic Easy Demand, a novel R package for performing behavioral economic analyses, is introduced and evaluated. beezdemand extends the R statistical program to facilitate many of the analyses performed in studies of behavioral economic demand. The package supports commonly used...

Rationale Patients weigh risks and benefits when making treatment decisions. Despite this, relatively few studies examine the behavioral patterns underpinning these decisions. Moreover, individual differences in these patterns remain largely unexplored. Objectives The purpose of this study was to test a probability discounting model to explain the...

Objective: Co-use of cannabis and alcohol is associated with increased drinking and other negative consequences relative to use of alcohol alone. One potential explanation for these differences is overvaluation of alcohol (e.g., alcohol demand) among co-users, similar to established overvaluation of alcohol among tobacco and alcohol co-users. This...

Introduction: Research has recently shown that nicotine reinforcement is better characterized by a bi-factorial latent structure: Persistence (insensitivity to cigarette pricing) and Amplitude (consumption at inexpensive prices). No study to date has examined its value as a predictor of abstinence. This study aimed to provide new evidence on the C...

Free and open‐source software for applying models of operant demand called the Demand Curve Analyzer (DCA) was developed and systematically evaluated for use in research. The software was constructed to streamline the use of recommended screening measures, prepare suitable scaling parameters, fit one of several models of operant demand, and provide...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease that causes a range of problematic symptoms. These symptoms tend to get worse over time, causing substantial impairment in patient quality of life. Although many effective disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) exist that slow the course of MS, patients often do not choose to take them, which may be beca...

Much human choice and decision-making research has employed a discounting framework to help aid our understanding of how time, uncertainty, and other factors influence an outcome’s value. Most of this research, however, is limited to the study of monetary outcomes. The purpose of the present study was to assess the discounting of an environmental o...

Background and Aims: The evolving legal status of cannabis in the United States and other countries necessitates the development of evidence-based regulatory policies to minimize risks associated with cannabis misuse. A prominent public health concern is whether legalization will lead to an expansion of the illegal cannabis market, with illegal can...

The sunk cost effect, known as the degree to which an initial investment of time, effort, or money increases the likelihood of continued investment, and delay discounting, defined as how rapidly the subjective value of a reward declines as a function of the delay to its receipt, incorporate the role of temporally distant stimuli, but have not been...