Implicit and explicit mechanisms in crack cocaine and sex trade association

描述（由申请人提供）：以前的研究表明，快克可卡因依赖性经常与毒品和/或金钱的性交换有关。文化、社会和经济因素使女性快克可卡因使用者特别容易受到这种做法的影响，因此感染艾滋病毒的风险增加。艾滋病在滥用快克可卡因的妇女中的流行升级证明有必要进行研究，以更好地了解滥用快克可卡因与性交易之间关系的内在机制。 这种关联引发了自愿自我毁灭，甚至危及生命的行为的悖论。挑战在于理解为什么人们继续从事他们知道会伤害他们的行为，尽管他们试图不这样做。拟议的研究表明，负责这种悖论的一个机制是分离的显性和隐性的评价和行为意图，在毒品使用的背景下从事性交易。具体来说，虽然快克可卡因使用者可能会报告对性交易的负面感受和未来避免性交易的行为意图，但在内隐水平上，这种做法与获得毒品的目标仍然呈正相关。因此，一旦这样的目标被情境因素激活（尽管是一种线索条件下的渴望），这种激活将自动激活行为表征和由此产生的行动（从事性交易的倾向），使目标导向的行为在没有意识意图和控制的情况下发生。拟议的研究目标 在目前参加住院药物滥用治疗的120名快克可卡因使用者样本中，调查这种机制的运作，作为性别（女性vs.男性）、先前参与性交换（存在vs.不存在）和认知诱导的药物渴望（存在vs.不存在）的函数。本研究采用了一种理论和方法，强调动机作为认知及其内隐性质。这种方法提供了一个概念性的背景和具体的调查技术，以评估这些过程之间的关系，快克/可卡因滥用和危险的性行为，可能不会 容易被有意识的内省所捕捉，或者不容易被控制，但它们仍然会影响行为。对这种机制的经验支持可以为现有干预提供信息，这可能有助于缓和这些自动机制。此外，新的技术，直接针对修改内隐认知过程（例如，通过评价性条件作用）可能会发展成药物滥用。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Previous research has showed that crack cocaine dependencies frequently associated with engagement in sex exchange for drugs and/or money. Cultural, social and economical factors make female crack cocaine users particularly vulnerable to such practices and, as a consequence, to increased risk for HIV. The escalation of the AIDS epidemic among crack cocaine abusing women justifies the need for research to better understand the mechanism underlying the relationship between crack cocaine abuse and sex trade. This association raises the paradox of voluntarily self-destructive, even life-threatening behaviors. The challenge is to understand why people continue to engage in such behaviors that they know will harm them, despite their attempts not to do so. The proposed research suggests that one mechanism responsible for such paradox is the dissociation between the explicit and implicit evaluations and behavioral intentions regarding engagement in sex trade in the context of drug use. Specifically, while crack cocaine users may report negative feelings toward sex trade and behavioral intentions to avoid it in the future, on the implicit level, such practice remains positively related to the goal of obtaining the drug. Consequently, once such goal is activated by contextual factors (though a cue-conditioned craving), this activation will automatically activate behavioral representations and resultant action (tendency to engage in sex trade) enabling the goal directed behavior to occur in the absence of conscious intentions and control. The proposed research aims to investigate the operation of such mechanism in a sample of 120 crack cocaine users currently enrolled in residential substance abuse treatment as a function of gender (female vs. male), previous involvement in sex exchange (present vs. absent) and cognitively induced drug craving (present vs. absent). The research adopts a theoretical and methodological approach that emphasizes motivation as cognition and its implicit nature. Such approach offers a conceptual background and specific investigation techniques to asses those processes underlying the relationship between crack/cocaine abuse and risky sexual behavior that may not be readily captured by conscious introspection or cannot easily be controlled, but they nevertheless influence behavior. Empirical support for such mechanism may inform existing interventions which could help to moderate these automatic mechanisms. In addition, new techniques aimed directly at modifying implicit cognitive processes (e .g. through evaluative conditioning) in substance abuse may be developed.