Delay discounting and e-cigarette use: An investigation in current, former, and never cigarette smokers

Abstract

Background: Cigarette smokers show greater delay discounting (devaluation of delayed consequences) than non-smokers, suggesting that rapid devaluation of the future contributes to tobacco use through a mechanism in which tobacco-related health consequences are too delayed to discourage smoking. However, little work has quantified delay discounting in relation to electronic cigarette (EC) use, a tobacco product that many users believe to pose fewer negative health consequences than cigarettes.

Methods: We assessed discounting of delayed monetary rewards in a web-based sample of 976 participants, stratified by both EC use (current and never) and cigarette use (current, former, and never).

Results: Controlling for demographic variance, current EC users generally showed greater discounting than never EC users (p = .019). Current cigarette smokers also showed greater discounting than former and never smokers (p < .001). However, the between-group difference for EC use was much smaller (η_p² = .006) than for cigarette use (η_p² = .026). Moreover, differences in discounting in relation to EC use were not statistically apparent in most pairwise comparisons. Most notably, the difference between former smokers who achieved smoking cessation by transitioning to ECs (i.e., exclusive EC users) and those who have never used ECs or cigarettes was nonsignificant and small (η_p² = .010).

Conclusions: The smaller effect size for the association between delay discounting and current EC use, relative to current cigarette use, suggests that public perception of ECs as a safer alternative to cigarettes attenuates the role of delay discounting in decisions to use ECs.

Keywords: Cigarettes; Delay discounting; Electronic cigarettes; Tobacco; e-cigarettes.

Fig. 1.

Flowchart describing study screening, enrollment, completion, and data analysis.

Fig. 2.

Significant main effects of EC use (left panel; p < .05), cigarette use (middle panel; p < .001), and reward magnitude (right panel; p < .001) on covariate-adjusted discount rate (ln κ; ± 95% CI).

Fig. 3.

Covariate-adjusted discount rate (ln κ; ± 95% CI), by EC and cigarette use. Superscripts represent significant difference in planned comparisons: ^adifferent than former smokers within the same EC use group (p < .01). ^bdifferent than former smokers in the opposite EC use group (p < .001); ^cdifferent than never EC users/never smokers (p < .001).