Individual-diff - cognitive biases

• As we have found with criminal behaviour, maladaptive behaviour may stem from faulty thinking. Perhaps the same is true of addiction
• Cognitive biases 


  Everybody has cognitive biases, not just addicts. Cognitive biases are our natural inclination to make information match what we want to believe or what we already believe. Humans have a fundamental need to think of themselves as good people. Therefore, we pay more attention to information that suggests we are a good person
• heuristics 


  Heuristics are different to schemas. Heuristics are a set of rules on how to process information. They are not packets of knowledge
• Heuristics definition 


  Heuristics are mental shortcuts that are used to solve a problem or make a decision. Heuristics can be very useful but under some circumstances taking these shortcuts can lead to people deviating from the logical decision they should have made
• The two heuristics we are interested in are representativeness and availability. Both are biases whereby the individual feels that they can predict unpredictable events.
• representativeness 


  gamblers fallacy.

  A gambler may feel that a bet is a “sure thing” due to the representativeness heuristic telling them that an outcome is due.

  Gamblers may feel that after a run of losing bets they are “due” a win, and so may persist in gambling behaviour. - Monaco and the roulette table
• availability 


  Events that are more easily recalled from memory may bias our

  assessment of how likely an outcome is. Because of the availability heuristic, the memory of the lottery winners is easier to remember than of lottery losers.

  Therefore, it may cause gamblers to overestimate their likelihood of

  winning the jackpot

  Companies that make gambling machines are aware of the

  availability heuristic.When the jackpot on a betting machine is won, there is usually a lot of noise e.g. the satisfying sound of the coins being dispensed. However, when the gambler loses, the machine is silent
• Attentional bias - Gettings et al 


  This refers to when an addict is paying attention to certain stimuli and ignoring other things in the environment. The bias increases the motivation to take part in the behaviour in the first place. Then the addict pays more attention to stimuli relating to the addiction which helps explain maintenance and even relapse. Stroop test provides evidence for this
• grifiths


  found support for cognitive biases when investigating the thinking processes of gamblers. Participants were informed to verbalise the thoughts they were having whilst gambling. It was found that 14% of the regular gamblers’ verbalisations were irrational, compared to just 2.5% of the non-regular gamblers.