Delay discounting in e-cigarette users, current and former smokers

Abstract

Background/Objective: Despite the fact that electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, are being increasingly used as an alternative to smoking tobacco cigarettes, few studies have explored psychological factors associated with e-cigarette use. Prior studies aimed at exploring correlates of e-cigarette use have focused on sociodemographic and smoking-related characteristics. However, no previous work has examined psychological features such as impulsivity among e-cigarettes users. The main objective of this study was to compare impulsivity rates across four groups of participants: current e-cigarette users who were former smokers; current smokers; former smokers; and controls. Method: A sample of 136 participants completed a computerized delay discounting task for hypothetical monetary values. Results: Delay discounting was greater among e-cigarette users than former smokers. E-cigarette users also showed an intermediate discounting that did not differ from smokers and controls. Moreover, delay discounting was significantly greater among current smokers compared to former smokers and controls. Conclusions: Taken together, our results extend previous research on delay discounting by providing evidence on impulsivity levels among current e-cigarette users for the first time.

Keywords: Delay discounting; E-cigarette; Experiment; Impulsivity; Smoking.

Figure 1

Comparisons of delay discounting across groups. Curves represent best fitting hyperbolic functions based on k values to group indifference points for each group. The symbols represent the median indifference points for each delay in each group: white triangles for the former smokers group, black circles for the control group, inverted white triangles for the e-cigarettes users group and white rhombus for the smokers group.