Some of this variability may selleck chem be related to measurement limitations. The most common method of assessing craving is via subjective self-report, which may be influenced by number of biases (Sayette et al., 2000; Tiffany, Carter, & Singleton, 2000). For example, individuals may vary in their semantic construal of the term ��craving�� as well as in their positive and negative attributions about the term. Furthermore, there is considerable variability in the elicitation and magnitude of subjective craving across individuals (Niaura et al., 1998; Shiffman et al., 2003), suggesting that its role may vary substantially. Finally, the role of subjective craving may be further obscured by more general limitations of memory and introspection (Hammersley, 1994; Wilson & Dunn, 2004).

The field of behavioral economics integrates principles from psychology and economics and has been extensively applied to the study of addictive behavior (Bickel & Vuchinich, 2000; MacKillop, Amlung, Murphy, Acker, & Ray, 2011). Behavioral economics can also be applied to understanding subjective craving for tobacco and other drugs, proposing that craving reflects an acute increase in the relative value of a commodity and is most meaningfully understood when measured in terms of incentive value (Loewenstein, 1999; MacKillop & Monti, 2007). As such, behavioral economics may improve the measurement of craving by translating subjective desire into more objective measures of value, such as units consumed or dollars spent.

Several previous studies, albeit in investigations that were not explicitly applying a behavioral economic approach, have found that experimental manipulations that typically increase craving also increased effort expended on operant tasks for cigarettes (Perkins, Epstein, Grobe, & Fonte, 1994; Perkins, Grobe, Weiss, Fonte, & Caggiula, 1996; Willner, Hardman, & Eaton, Entinostat 1995). However, these studies have had various limitations, such as not always concurrently assessing subjective craving. In addition, a number of laboratory studies have found that subjective craving for cigarettes is significantly positively correlated with behavioral economic measures of relative value (Leeman, O��Malley, White, & McKee, 2010; McKee et al., 2011; Perkins, Grobe, & Fonte, 1997; Sayette, Martin, Wertz, Shiffman, & Perrott, 2001), but the relationships reported were cross-sectional. One study examined the effect of deprivation on behavioral economic indices of impulsivity and value but used a suboptimal measure of relative value (Field, Santarcangelo, Sumnall, Goudie, & Cole, 2006). Thus, the studies to date have incompletely addressed this question.