The same psychological mechanisms that transfer the positive effects of alcohol “forward in time” from the delayed physiological effects to the first sip should also work for the disulfiram hangover. And precommitment is a psychologically powerful effect. Pigeons will reliable learn to hit a button that disables another button providing a small short-term reward so that they can later hit the button providing a larger reward.
Taking a disulfiram pill in the morning because doing it yesterday resulted in you waking up feeling great today is a fairly easy psychological association to make.
Concluding that disulfiram shouldn’t work and success is all correlation seems like way too strong a conclusion. People do learn from strong longer-term contingencies even if it’s less powerful relative to consequences than short-term contingencies.
The same psychological mechanisms that transfer the positive effects of alcohol “forward in time” from the delayed physiological effects to the first sip should also work for the disulfiram hangover. And precommitment is a psychologically powerful effect. Pigeons will reliable learn to hit a button that disables another button providing a small short-term reward so that they can later hit the button providing a larger reward.
Taking a disulfiram pill in the morning because doing it yesterday resulted in you waking up feeling great today is a fairly easy psychological association to make.
Concluding that disulfiram shouldn’t work and success is all correlation seems like way too strong a conclusion. People do learn from strong longer-term contingencies even if it’s less powerful relative to consequences than short-term contingencies.