| Delay discounting (DD) refers to the tendency for the subjective value of a reward to decrease as the delay to its receipt increases and has been implicated in a range of maladaptive behaviors.
Although DD is commonly studied using monetary outcomes, recent research suggests that DD paradigms can be extended to nonmonetary outcomes, such as sexual activity, highlighting the
potential utility of commodity-specific discounting tasks. Within monetary discounting, a well established magnitude effect has been observed, whereby larger rewards are discounted less steeply than smaller rewards. The present study aimed to replicate prior findings related to
commodity-specific discounting and to examine whether the magnitude effect extends to discounting of sexual activity. As part of a larger study, university students (N = 434) completed two DD tasks involving monetary outcomes, two DD tasks involving sexual activity outcomes,
and a self-report measure assessing delay of gratification. Results indicated that monetary DD
was associated with a commodity-specific self-report measure, whereas DD for sexual activity was not. Consistent with previous literature, a magnitude effect was observed for monetary outcomes. However, contrary to hypotheses, an inverse magnitude effect emerged for sexual
activity, such that larger amounts of sexual activity were discounted more steeply than smaller amounts. These findings suggest that discounting processes may differ across reward types and underscore the importance of continued commodity-specific research. Moreover, to our knowledge, this study is the first to examine the magnitude effect in the context of sexual
activity, representing a novel contribution to the delay discounting literature.
Keywords: decision-making, delay discounting, sexual activity, commodity-specific, magnitude
effect |