Gambling: cognitive theory

• Expectancy theory

  Expectancies are at the heart of cognitive explanations of gambling. 

  Human beings as a rule form expectations about future costs and benefits of behaviour

  • and this drives an awful lot of our behaviours, including gambling.

  If they expect the benefits of gambling to outweigh the costs, then addiction becomes more likely. 

  Whilst this may sound like a conscious, rational process - it is not!
• Self efficacy

  Refers to our own expectations of our abilities. 

  In this context, self efficacy refers to the belief that our behaviour will result in a desired outcome i.e. a win. 

  It can explain why some people relapse into gambling after successfully abstaining - an individual takes up gambling again because they simply do not believe that they are capable of giving it up. 

  This then results in a self fulfilling prophecy
• Cognitive biases

  The cause of gambling addiction lies in the common beliefs that addicts have about gambling. 

  These cognitive biases are accompanied by specific types of thinking, attention and memory processes linked to the beliefs

  Gambling addiction develops and is maintained because the addict pays more attention to gambling related information and remembers it selectively
• Cognitive biases 

  Rickwood et al (2010) classify these common cognitive biases and distortions into four categories:

  • Skill and judgement
  • Personal traits / ritual behaviours
  • Selective recall
  • Faulty perceptions
• Cognitive biases - Skills and judgements

  Gambling addicts have an illusion of control, which means they overestimate their ability to influence random events (e.g. being especially skilled at choosing lottery numbers or at pulling a slot machine)
• Cognitive biases - Personal traits / ritual behaviours

  Gambling addicts believe that they have a greater probability of winning because they are especially lucky or they engaged in some superstitious behaviour
• Cognitive biases - Selective recall

  Gamblers can remember the details of their wins but they forget, ignore or otherwise discount their losses, which are often interpreted as completely unexplainable mysteries.
• Cognitive biases - Faulty perceptions

  Addicted gamblers have distorted views about the operation of chance, exemplified by the gambler’s fallacy

  • the belief that a losing streak cannot last and is always about to be ended by a win
• P- The cognitive explanation of gambling addiction has support from research evidence.

  E- For example, Michalczuk  et al (2011) studies 30 addicted gamblers attending the National Problem Gambling Clinic in the UK and compared them with 30 non-gamblers. The addicted gamblers showed significantly higher levels of gambling related distortions of all types. They were also more impulsive and were more likely to prefer immediate rewards
• E&L-These findings support the view that there is a strong cognitive component to gambling addiction. Because addicted gamblers make gambling decisions impulsively, they have a powerful tendency towards distorted thinking during play
• P-There is evidence to support the role of automatic processing in gambling behaviour.

  E-For example, Gettings et al (1997) used a modified Stroop procedure where p’s had to identify as quickly as possible the ink colour in which the words were printed (this involves ignoring the meaning of the word). Gamblers took longer to perform this task when the words related to gambling. They were unable to prevent the word from automatically interfering with the task.
• L-This is evidence that gamblers have an automatic cognitive bias to pay attention to gambling-related information, a bias that does not exist in non-gamblers. This supports the view of the cognitive explanation that many cognitive biases influence addiction and operate without us even being aware we have them.
• P-Knowledge of cognitive factors has resulted in the development of effective treatments

  E-The suggestion that gamblers may have systematically different ways of thinking than non-gamblers has valuable implications for effective treatment. Cognitive treatments like CBT directly address the distorted thinking of gamblers. Luke Clark (2010) also points out that cognitive distortions probably have an underlying cause in brain neurochemistry.
• L-So, cognitive theories are stimulating research into biological treatments as well as psychological ones, furthering the impact and applicability of psychology