Evolution & Human Adaptations Program (EHAP) Winter Speaker Series: “Gambling, Binge-Eating and Other Addictive Behaviors”

Speaking as part of the series “Excessive Appetites: Food, Drugs, and Money" co-sponsored by the Evolutionary Human Adaptations Program and Psychiatry Department.

Temporal Discounting, the decline in value of a reinforcer as a function of delay, is closely related to both the phenotype of addiction and drug valuation. Longer temporal windows are important in valuing lower intensity, and often variable, prosocial reinforcers. Shorter temporal windows are important in valuing brief, intense, reliable reinforcers such as drugs and lead to a decline in the value of prosocial reinforcers. Using episodic future thinking and narrative theory and methods, we have modified delay discounting. The findings support that temporal window is inversely related to drug valuation, identify temporal discounting as a novel target for addiction intervention, and demonstrate the utility of narratives to modify future thinking.