Subject-rated measures and drug self-administration represent two of the most commonly used methods of assessing the behavioral effects of drugs in the human laboratory. Although the results from these methods are often consistent, dissociations between subjective and self-administration data have been observed. This presentation will first introduce basic human behavioral pharmacology methods for measuring subjective and reinforcing effects of drugs, focusing on representative data from commonly abused stimulants. Second, correlational and regression analyses that examined the relationships between subjective and reinforcing drug effects will be presented to demonstrate which subjective measures best predict stimulant self-administration. Third, examples of divergence between subjective and reinforcing drug effects will be explored to show how these measures provide different and complementary information about stimulant drug effects. Potential mechanisms underlying this divergence also will be considered. Finally, the implications of these outcomes as they relate to future human laboratory research and intervention development for managing drug-use disorders will be reviewed.

CE: 1.0 credit BACB