TITLE: IMPULSIVNENESS AND SELF-REOPRTED VALUES MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Mark R. Dixon Towards developing an applied behavior technology that treats vales as the dependent variable of interest, there is a necessity for understanding the relationship between impulsiveness and self-reported values. The purpose of this study was to evaluate how values affected social and delay discounting. Thirty participants were given two surveys, one was a social discounting survey, and the other was a delay discounting survey. Finally, participants were given a valued-living questionnaire. In the social discounting survey, participants were asked to mentally make a list of people they knew from 1-100, 1 being the closest to them and 100 being a distant acquaintance. They were then asked to pick between two choices involving hypothetical money. Starting with the choice of keeping $85 for themselves, or giving $75 to the 1st person on their list. The second choice was to keep $75 for themselves, or give $75 to the #1 person on their list. The monetary value continued to decrease by 10, while the value to give to another person remained the same, these were continued for person #2, # 5, #10, #20, and #50 on their list. The delay discounting instructed participants to choose between two hypothetical choices. The first was receiving $85 today or $75 in 1 week. The second choice was to receive $75 today, or $75 in 1 week. The hypothetical monetary value was decreased by $10, until it reached $5. The valued living questionnaire used a Likert-scale from 1-10 with 1 being ‘not at all important and ’10 being ‘extremely important’ across 10 areas (family-other than marriage or parenting, i marriage/couples, intimate relations, parenting, friends/social life, work, education/training, recreation/fun, spirituality, citizenship/community life, and physical self-care (diet, exercise, sleep). The second section of the questionnaire evaluated committed action, and asked participants to rate how consistent their actions have been with each of these value areas within the past week. A Likert-scale was also used from 1-10, with 1 being ‘not at all consistent with my value’ and 10 being ‘completely consistent with my value’. A Pearson product-movement correlation coefficient was composed to access the relationship between the switch point of discounting and rating of each area of valued living. There were to valued living areas with significant findings. There was a positive correlation between Social AUC and VLQ: Importance- Social/Friends (r=.503, n=30, p=.005). There was also a positive correlation between Delay AUC and VLQ: Importance- Physical self-care (r=.448, n=30, p=.013). There was no correlation between either social AUC and delay AUC and any of the committed action values. The results have implications for a translational understanding of the influence of discounting on reported values and committed action processes.

abstract: The value of safe sex may be discounted based on contextual factors associated with an opportunity for sex. College students (n = 75) in a within-subjects study selected hypothetical sexual partners from a set of pictures and classified them based on attractiveness and estimated chance of having an STI. In the sexual delay discounting (SDD) task, participants rated their likelihood (0 – 100%) of waiting for some period of time (e.g., 3 hours) to have protected sex with their selected partners, when they could have immediate sex without protection. In the sexual probability discounting (SPD) task, participants rated their likelihood of having protected sex if the opportunity was uncertain (e.g., 50%), when they could have unprotected sex for sure (100%). All participants included in the final analyses were aware of and had a positive attitude towards protection against STIs as they indicated preference for immediate (or certain) protected sex. Results show that participants’ willingness to have safe sex systematically decreased as the delay to and odds against having safe sex increased. However, these discounting patterns were observed only in some partner conditions but not others, showing that preference for delayed (or uncertain) safe sex was altered by perceived attractiveness and STI risk of sexual partners. Moreover, the hyperbolic discounting model provided good to acceptable fit to the delay and probability discounting data in most-wanted and least-STI conditions. Gender differences in devaluation of safe sex were also found. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2016

The study compared delay discounting in adult humans using two different methods of adjustments. Both methods used hypothetical choices of monetary outcomes. One involved adjustments using a fixed sequence of ascending or descending amounts, the other used a bisection algorithm in which the changes in amounts varied as a function of the subjects' choices. Two magnitudes of delayed outcomes were used: $1,000 and $10,000. A within subject design was used to compare indifference curves and discounting measures across the two adjusting procedures. Twenty four subjects were divided in two groups and exposed to the procedures in opposite order, to account for sequence effects. Results from within subject comparisons showed no systematic differences between procedures.

The purpose of this study was to examine choice-making as it relates to providing a source of clean water to those at varying social distances. A discounting survey was completed by 65 participants asking them to choose between spending a specified about of money on plastic water bottles that have a 100% chance of harming the environment or spending $1000 on a water filtration system that has a 0% chance of harming the environment. Results indicated that as social distance increased, responding became more impulsive as evident by a steeper amount of discounting. For “Person #1”, 27.69% of participants chose to spend money on plastic water bottles while for “Person #100”, 53.8% of participants chose to spend money on plastic water bottles. The R2 calculated was 0.8633. Results also indicated that there was a positive correlation between frequency of behaving in sustainable ways and how much one valued the environment, as well as how concerned one was with the environment. Implications, strengths and limitations, and future research opportunities are discussed.

The present study aimed to evaluate (a) the extent to which different impulsivity measures would be related to each other and to a risk taking measure, (b) the extent to which impulsivity, risk taking, time perception and time perspective are related to each other, and (c) the extent to which these processes differ in Latino and White American students. Experiment I was conducted at Utah State University. One hundred and fortythree participants were exposed to the delay discounting, probability discounting and temporal bisection procedures, and answered the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) and the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI). Results showed that (a) the AUC for delay discounting was related to the scores on the BIS-11 scale, (b) the AUCs for delay and probability discounting were positively and significantly correlated, (c) the mean of the temporal bisection procedure was correlated with the AUC of the delay discounting procedure, (d) the scores on the ZTPI were correlated with the impulsivity measures, and (e) the scores on the ZTPI subscales were also correlated with the risk taking measure. These results suggest that different impulsivity measures may be evaluating similar decision-making processes, that impulsivity and risk taking may be different decision- making processes, and that time perception and time perspective are related to impulsivity and risk taking. Experiment II was conducted at Washington University in St. Louis, with 18 Latinos and 16 White Americans. Results show that while Latinos were more impulsive in the delay discounting procedure, their scores did not differ from the White Americans on the BIS-11. Interestingly, Latinos and White Americans did not differ on time perception, but they did differ on time perspective: Latinos scored higher on fatalism compared to White Americans.

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Convergent validity has been used to evaluate the correlation between measurement tools. Delayed discounting has been used in order to determine the impulsivity in a variety of populations. Delayed discounting tasks have historically consisted of long, time consuming surveys. These tasks present participants with questions that relate to smaller sooner, or larger later rewards following various temporal delays. The purpose of the present study was to determine the convergent validity between a brief delayed discounting survey and a long, traditional version of the survey. The traditional survey consisted of 189 questions that contained 7 temporal delays and hypothetical money amounts. The brief survey was created based on the long survey but consisted of only 7 questions. Results from this study indicate that convergent validity did not exist between the two surveys. Keywords: delayed discounting, convergent validity, impulsivity

The purpose of the current study is to apply the delay and probability discounting in the areas of parent training and probability of success of treatment. There was a total of 31 participants that completed one demographic questionnaire and two probability and delay discounting surveys either via computer or with paper and pencil. Participants had two options in the surveys: one was an immediate reward, and one with a probability delay. The first survey gave scenarios of hours of parent training, the second was a monetary probability discounting survey.

The present study used a discounting task to evaluate how hypothetical treatment outcomes were discounter across successively greater probability values. Two discounting questionnaires were administered to thirty parents, half of which had a child with a disability. Delayed discounting of monetary rewards was assessed in relationship with probability discounting of hypothetical treatment outcomes. The questions on the probability discounting questionnaire consisted of asking participants to choose between a guaranteed percentage of symptom elimination or descending probability to eliminate all of their child’s symptoms. For example, “Which treatment outcome would you prefer for your child? (a) guaranteed elimination of 50% of symptoms or 30% chance to eliminate all symptoms.” Results showed a difference in the levels of discounting across the two groups of participants. Parents of children with disabilities discounted hypothetical monetary rewards more steeply while discounting hypothetical treatment outcomes less steeply compared to parents of children without disabilities. Exponential delay functions provided a strong fit for the monetary delayed function.

Over the past decade children have been facing increasingly large deficits towards their ability to pay attention. The inability to pay attention impacts children in every facet of their lives from focusing at school, in their home life, after school activities, etc. Inattention may impact children’s school performance, formation of social bonds, and the inability to pick up on appropriate social cues. Recently, more research has been conducted looking at attention processes in children and how they impact their daily functioning. However, a void lies in the treatments to help increase these deficits. The impact inattention has on children may be potentially harmful to their development and overall well-being. One type of treatment that may be beneficial in decreasing attention deficits is mindfulness. Mindfulness is the non-judgmental observation of the ongoing stream of internal and external stimuli as they arise. Mindfulness is a treatment that has been recently gaining popularity in youth populations. Mindfulness is a type of treatment that differs from traditional approaches. The aim of mindfulness is to modify how a person interacts with their environment, teaching them to be aware of the stimuli in their environment, being in contact with their present moment, and helping to increase their overall attention. Experiment I sought to examine the effects of a 6 session, 120-minute Mindfulness Based Intervention utilizing mindfulness activities for children versus that of a Control Group when engaging in various attention tasks. The tasks targeted different attention processes (i.e. sustained attention and inhibitory control) and were presented to the participants at pre and posttest. Participants were selected for the Mindfulness Group or the Control Group based on age. Each participant completed four attention tasks (CPT-X Task, Go-No/Go Task, Visual Cancellation Task, and Crossword Puzzle Task) at the beginning of the study. After completion of the tasks, the Mindfulness Group participated in mindfulness activities and the Control Group continued with treatment as usual (their standard after school/summer curriculum). After the mindfulness training, all participants completed the attention tasks again. Experiment I results were indicative of statistically significant differences with respect to a number of dependent measures across groups. On the CPT-X task, a significant difference was shown at posttest in the experimental (M=1.90, SD=3.12) compared to the control (M=6.4, SD=5.18) group; t (40)=(-3.32), p= .002 on the total false alarms and targets missed. A significant difference was also shown at posttest in the experimental (M=1.55, SD=2.98) compared to the control (M=4.95, SD=4.75) group; t (40)= (-2.71), p= .01 for false alarms in the CPT-X task. When analyzing the Visual Cancellation Task outcomes, a significant difference was shown at posttest in the experimental (M=1.90, SD=3.12) compared to the control (M=6.4, SD=5.18) group; t (40)=(-3.32), p= .002 for total missed. A significant difference was also shown at posttest in the experimental (M=1.55, SD=2.98) compared to the control (M=4.95, SD=4.75) group; t (40)=(-2.71), p= .01 for false alarms on the Visual Cancellation Task. When both sustained attention tasks were compared to determine task outcomes, significant correlations were found between False Alarms on the CPT-X Task and the Visual Cancellation Task: r= .675, p= < .01. Significant correlations were also found between Total Missed on the CPT-X Task and the Visual Cancellation Task: r= .487, p< .05. These results suggest that on multiple attention tasks, sustained attention increased after exposure to mindfulness. Taken altogether, these results indicate that the introduction of a Mindfulness Based Intervention for children served to increase sustained attention. In order to compare the impact of a mindfulness-based training approach on impulsiveness, a multiple probe experimental design across participants was utilized in Experiment II with five participants formally diagnosed with ADHD. During baseline, the participants participated in the delay-discounting task and completed two questionnaires (AFQ-Y and CAMM). The training phases included mindfulness activities from Dixon (2014), ACT for Children with Autism and Emotional Disorders. After participating in the mindfulness activity, the participants were presented with the discounting task and the two questionnaires. Overall, increases in the participant’s discounting scores as measured by their AUC (Area Under the Curve) improved. This suggests that after receiving the mindfulness activities, the participants made less impulsive decisions towards monetary outcomes. Moderate changes on the CAMM self-report measure occurred for 3 out of 5 participants. The introduction of the mindfulness activities showed to increase self-control decision making and mindful awareness. Experiment III sought to examine the effects of a 5 day, 6 hour intensive mindfulness based camp utilizing mindfulness activities versus that of a control group. Participants for the experimental group were recruited via the community and the control group participants were age matched with the experimental group. Participants in the mindfulness camp participated in mindfulness activities across a 5 day period and completed two questionnaires (AFQ-Y and CAMM) before the camp began and again at the end of the last day. The AFQ-Y and CAMM questionnaires are empirically validated questionnaires used to measure psychological flexibility and mindful awareness outcomes with children. The control group did not receive any mindfulness training and completed the same two questionnaires 5 days apart. Results of Experiment III were indicative of statistically significant differences with respect to both dependent measures (AFQ-Y and CAMM) when analyzed within and across the experimental and control group. When analyzing the CAMM outcomes, a significant difference was shown at posttest in the experimental (M=29.66, SD=7.16) compared to the control (M=21.26, SD=8.22) group, t (30)= (2.98), p=.006. Additionally, a significant difference at posttest was shown in the experimental (M=17.13 SD=7.64) compared to the control (M=27.4, SD=12.30) group, t (30) = (-2.74), p= .010 on the AFQ-Y. Visual analysis of the AFQ-Y measure within the mindfulness group from pretest to posttest denotes a decrease in scores across 80% of the participants suggesting increases in psychological flexibility. Visual analysis of the CAMM measure within the mindfulness group from pretest to posttest shows an increase in scores across 67% of the participants suggesting increases in mindful awareness. Previous research has investigated the efficacy of mindfulness interventions with children with the total training contact hours varying. Results of the current study showed that in Experiment I, after a total of 120 minutes of mindfulness training, increases in attention were demonstrated across the experimental group. Experiment II demonstrated that mindfulness training was effective in altering decision making in children with ADHD and Experiment III results showed that after 30 hours of the mindfulness training, mindfulness served to facilitate increases in psychological flexibility and mindful awareness. Additionally, across experiments I and III, a greater influence on attention, mindful awareness, and psychological flexibility was shown compared to the control groups, suggesting the importance of mindfulness training with children.