Toward quantifying the abuse liability of ultraviolet tanning: A behavioral economic approach to tanning addiction
A short fake-money tanning quiz cleanly separates addicted from casual tanners, and free web apps now graph the results for you.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Reed et al. (2016) built a 15-item Tanning Purchase Task. People with tanning addiction and casual tanners said how many sessions they would buy at prices from $0 to $10.
The task took five minutes. Higher scores meant stronger tanning demand. The goal was to see if the quiz could spot addicted tanners like a drug-abuse screen spots drug users.
What they found
Addicted tanners said they would buy more sessions at every price. Their demand curve stayed high, while casual tanners dropped off quickly.
The test gave two clear numbers: intensity (how many at free) and elasticity (how fast demand falls). These numbers told the groups apart, so the task works as a quick addiction ruler.
How this fits with other research
Kaplan et al. (2025) extends this work. Their shinybeez app now draws the same demand curves in one click, so you no longer need manual Excel formulas.
Malkin et al. (2025) conceptually replicated the logic. They asked Ontario BCBAs how many yearly registrations they would buy at rising fees and found the same price-elastic drop-off, showing the purchase-task lens works for any commodity.
Dixon et al. (2016) used a similar behavioral-economic frame with disordered gamblers. Both 2016 studies show you can quantify addiction traits in adults with substance-use issues; one maps tanning demand, the other tweaks delay discounting.
Why it matters
You now have a five-minute purchase task that validly flags tanning addiction. Use it during intake to spot clients who may need extra health education. If you like the idea but hate hand-graphing curves, open shinybeez, paste the data, and show the client their own demand line in session. The same quiz logic can price-check other target behaviors—just swap tanning for soda, screen time, or even staff training credits.
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Join Free →Drop the 15-item Tanning Purchase Task into your adult intake packet and upload answers to shinybeez to see the demand curve in session.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Many adults engage in ultraviolet indoor tanning despite evidence of its association with skin cancer. The constellation of behaviors associated with ultraviolet indoor tanning is analogous to that in other behavioral addictions. Despite a growing literature on ultraviolet indoor tanning as an addiction, there remains no consensus on how to identify ultraviolet indoor tanning addictive tendencies. The purpose of the present study was to translate a behavioral economic task more commonly used in substance abuse to quantify the "abuse liability" of ultraviolet indoor tanning, establish construct validity, and determine convergent validity with the most commonly used diagnostic tools for ultraviolet indoor tanning addiction (i.e., mCAGE and mDSM-IV-TR). We conducted a between-groups study using a novel hypothetical Tanning Purchase Task to quantify intensity and elasticity of ultraviolet indoor tanning demand and permit statistical comparisons with the mCAGE and mDSM-IV-TR. Results suggest that behavioral economic demand is related to ultraviolet indoor tanning addiction status and adequately discriminates between potential addicted individuals from nonaddicted individuals. Moreover, we provide evidence that the Tanning Purchase Task renders behavioral economic indicators that are relevant to public health research. The present findings are limited to two ultraviolet indoor tanning addiction tools and a relatively small sample of high-risk ultraviolet indoor tanning users; however, these pilot data demonstrate the potential for behavioral economic assessment tools as diagnostic and research aids in ultraviolet indoor tanning addiction studies.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2016 · doi:10.1002/jeab.216