Impulsivity; The Behavioral and Neurological Science of Discounting

Madden, Gregory J. & Warren K. Bickel

ISBN 10: 1433804778 / ISBN 13: 9781433804779

Published by American Psychological Association (APA), 2009

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Impulsivity; The Behavioral and Neurological Science of Discounting
• Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
• Publication Date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1433804778
• ISBN 13: 9781433804779
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Impulsivity explores the basis for the seemingly universal tendency to devalue rewards or punishments that are not immediately available. When confronted with any number of modern impulsive behaviors—such as drug use, pathological gambling, marital infidelity, and gluttony—individuals have a choice with two outcomes: an immediate benefit, such as getting high, or a delayed or probabilistic benefit, such as health, money saved, or the satisfaction of a good life.

This volume is an approachable, comprehensive overview of the behavioral science and neuroscience of these impulsive choices and their relation to delay discounting—the tendency to devalue temporally distant rewards or punishments, even though they may greatly outbalance the immediate benefit of our choices.

The cutting-edge researchers who contributed to this volume have documented cross-species similarities in impulsive decision making and pioneered the neuroscience of impulsive choice. In this text they provide insights into harmless impulsive acts as well as those that dominate and destroy lives. The contributors tackle key issues such as whether impulsivity and risk taking are a trait or state; the neuroscience, neuroeconomics, and computational modeling of neural systems underlying impulsivity; and the relation between impulsivity and addictions, health decision making, altruism, and attention-deficit disorder.

Theoretical debates regarding the origins of impulsivity round out this text, which will be of interest to researchers and graduate students in psychology, behavioral economics, psychopharmacology, behavioral analysis and therapy, and the science of decision making.

About the Author

Gregory J. Madden, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Applied Behavioral Science at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. He is the author or coauthor of a number of the seminal scientific papers in the field of delay discounting. His work in this area, and in the broader field of behavioral economics, has been supported by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Dr. Madden has served on the editorial boards of three prominent journals and is a past associate editor of the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. His current research addresses biobehavioral links between delay discounting and gambling, and techniques for teaching tolerance of delays.
 
Warren K. Bickel, PhD, is professor of psychiatry; Wilbur D. Mills Chair of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Prevention; Director of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), Little Rock, Center for Addiction Research; and director of the interdisciplinary Tobacco Research Program at UAMS. He is the recipient of the Joseph Cochin Young Investigator Award from the College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD), the Young Psychopharmacologist Award from the Division of Psychopharmacology and Substance Abuse of the American Psychological Association (APA), and a MERIT award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. He has served as president of Division 28 (Psychopharmacology and Substance Abuse) of the APA and as the president of CPDD. He was editor of the journal Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, has coedited four books, and has published more than 230 papers. His research interests include the neurobehavioral mechanisms of addiction and therapeutic processes underlying recovery from addiction.