Predicting domain-specific outcomes using delay and probability discounting for sexual versus monetary outcomes

• Discounting is a behavioral process that underlies a range of health-risk behaviors.
• Discounting for sexual activity may predict sexual outcomes better than discounting for money.
• Discounting for sexual activity and discounting for money were significantly correlated.
• Discounting for sexual activity, but not money, predicted sexual excitability.
• Gender may play a role in the relationship between discounting and some health behaviors.

Discounting, the tendency to devalue an outcome as a function of its delay or probability, is emerging as a fundamental process that underlies a broad range of impulsivity-related behaviors. Recent research suggests that people discount the value of sexual outcomes and individual differences in rate of discounting of sexual outcomes may represent an important behavioral process that underlies sexual risk behavior. However, it is not clear that discounting the value of domain-specific sexual outcomes (e.g., sexual activity) is a better predictor of sexual behaviors than is discounting for domain non-specific outcomes (e.g., money). Adult undergraduates (n = 103) completed delay and probability discounting procedures in relation to money and sexual activity and a series of self-report measures concerning sexual and non-sexual outcomes. Results revealed domain-specific relationships such that (1) discounting for sexual and monetary outcomes were significantly correlated; (2) discounting for sexual activity was significantly associated with sexual excitability, but not with non-sexual outcomes; and (3) discounting for money was not related to the sexual outcomes. A consistent gender effect across measures suggests that gender may moderate the relationships between discounting and sexual and non-sexual outcomes. The relevance of these findings for domain-specific discounting is discussed.