Automating Scoring of Delay Discounting for the 21- and 27-Item Monetary Choice Questionnaires

Overview

Journal Behav Anal

Specialty Psychiatry

Date 2020 Jan 25

PMID 31976983

Citations 54

Authors

Brent A Kaplan

Michael Amlung

Derek D Reed

David P Jarmolowicz

Todd L McKerchar

Shea M Lemley

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Delay discounting describes the process wherein rewards lose value as a function of their delayed receipt; how quickly rewards lose value is termed the rate of delay discounting. Rates of delay discounting are robust predictors of much behavior of societal importance. One efficient approach to obtaining a human subject's rate of delay discounting is via the 21- and 27-item Monetary Choice Questionnaires, brief dichotomous choice tasks that assess preference between small immediate and larger delayed monetary outcomes. Unfortunately, the scoring procedures for the Monetary Choice Questionnaires are rather complex, which may serve as a barrier to their use. This report details a freely available Excel-based spreadsheet tool that automatically scores Monetary Choice Questionnaire response sets, using both traditional and contemporary/advanced approaches. An overview of the Monetary Choice Questionnaire and its scoring algorithm is provided. We conclude with general considerations for using the spreadsheet tool.

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