ArticleAppetite2018
Less is more: Negative income shock increases immediate preference in cross commodity discounting and food demand.
Article in Appetite, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 62 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic review of delay discounting among workers: framing effects, resource availability, and health.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Pooled it
- Delay discounting of different outcomes: Review and theory.Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior · 2020Pooled it
- Income shock increases preferences for smaller immediate rewards and reduces alcohol demand among a sample of crowd-sourced adults.Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology · 2023Trial
- Narrative theory v: Narratives about penalties resulting from illegal tobacco purchases increase psychological distress.Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology · 2023Trial
- Future thinking to decrease real-world drinking in alcohol use disorder: Repairing reinforcer pathology in a randomized proof-of-concept trial.Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology · 2022Trial
- Bleak present, bright future: II. Combined effects of episodic future thinking and scarcity on delay discounting in adults at risk for type 2 diabetes.Journal of behavioral medicine · 2021Trial
- Hypothetical food purchase tasks and eating behavior: A systematized review and future directions.Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior · 2026Review
- Narrative simulation of financial scarcity: Effects on delay discounting, cigarette craving, and cigarette demand in adults who smoke cigarettes.Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Sensitization of the reinforcing value of food is associated with greater BMI percentile in lower income adolescents.Appetite · 2025Observational
- Contributions of subjective status to eating behaviors, obesity, and metabolic health across development.Appetite · 2025Review
- Adapting temporal preference to scarcity: A role for emotion?Journal of risk and uncertainty · 2025Article
- Present-Focused Behavior as a Rational Adaptation to Precarity.Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science · 2025Article
- Delay discounting of rewards and losses, alcohol use, and the influence of socioeconomic factors: A cross-sectional online study in frequent drinkers.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2024Article
- Neighborhood Environment and Poor Maternal Glycemic Control-Associated Complications of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus.AJPM focus · 2024Article
- Tunneling, cognitive load and time orientation and their relations with dietary behavior of people experiencing financial scarcity - an AI-assisted scoping review elaborating on scarcity theory.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2024Article
- The Phenotype of Recovery X: Associations between delay discounting, regulatory flexibility, and remission from substance use disorder.Journal of substance use and addiction treatment · 2023Article
- Mechanisms of impulsive choice: Experiments to explore and models to map the empirical terrain.Learning & behavior · 2023Review
- Utility of the 5-trial adjusting delay task in screening for high delay discounting rates: A cohort study of individuals reporting harmful alcohol and tobacco use.Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology · 2023Article
- Dissecting the causal relationship between household income status and genetic susceptibility to cardiovascular-related diseases: Insights from bidirectional mendelian randomization study.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Extra-experimental scarcity impacts hypothetical operant demand: A natural SARS-CoV-2 eperiment.Behavioural processes · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Negative income shock, or the rapid reduction in financial stability, has previously been shown to increase impulsive choice for money and demand for fast food. The interplay of these conditions for obesity is called reinforcer pathology. The present work examines the impact of negative income shock on monetary and fast food discounting using a cross-commodity delay discounting task and on purchasing of fast food and an alternative commodity. An obese sample (n = 120) was recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk and assigned to read one of two narratives: negative income shock (n = 60) or control (n = 60). Participants then completed both within- and cross-commodity discounting tasks of money and food, and purchase tasks for fast food and bottled water. The negative income shock group demonstrated greater impulsive choice across discounting tasks, as well as higher intensity of demand for fast food but not for a non-caloric control commodity (bottled water). These results suggest that negative income shock increases preference for immediate reinforcement regardless of commodity type (money or fast food), but has specific effects increasing demand for particular commodities (fast food but not an alternative). In a reinforcer pathology framework, negative income shock increasing discounting of the future while increasing demand for fast food specifically represents a high-risk state for negative health behavior in obesity.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.