Learning theory of gambling

• What is vicarious reinforcement?


  Seeing someone being rewarded for their gambling, and may decide to carry out the behaviour themselves
• What is partial reinforcement?


  Only some bets are rewarded, so there is an unpredictability about which games will pay out
• What is variable reinforcement?


  The machine pays out after a random amount of times each time

  Produces the most persistent behaviour
• What did Dickerson do?


  Observed gamblers in real life and found pathological gamblers were more likely to place their bets in the last two minutes before a horse race

  This prolongs the excitement of making a bet
• What is an issue with learning theory?

  Explain some forms of gambling more than others

  Eg some games require skill like poker
• What are fruit machines described as?

  Temporally contiguous
• What does temporally contiguous mean?

  No delay between placing the bet and the reward
• What is the issue with non-temporally contiguous gambling?

  Games of skill have a delay between the bet and the reward

  Classical conditioning involves stimulus-repsonse, therefore learning cannot occur
• How is learning theory a limited explanation?

  Brown - reinforcement schedules don’t explain why someone starts

  Eg you lose money on your first go - why would you continue?
• What is an advantage of learning theory as an explanation for gambling?


  Can explain why people can’t stop

  It is involuntary so no conscious decisions are made