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GAMBLING ADDICTION - COGNITIVE THEORY - Coggle Diagram
GAMBLING ADDICTION - COGNITIVE THEORY
key assumptions
faulty thinking becomes habitual and therefore lead to the development and maintenance of the behaviour
explains gambling behaviour in terms of cognitive distortions or maladaptive thought patterns
cognitive bias
near miss bias - think they are constantly nearly winning, not constantly loosing
just world hypothesis - believe they deserve to win having lost so often
illusions of control - directly manipulate the outcome of the event through superstitious behaviours, they might believe they have exaggerated self confidence - eg kissing dice before throwing them
recall bias - remembering and overestimating wins, forgetting losses
The Gamblers Fallacy - assuming previous events will influence future events, which are in fact entirely random
flexible attributions - gamblers win due to there skill and looses because of other influences
griffiths 1994
given £3 to spend on a fruit machine - 30 gambles
given the objective to stay on the machine for 60 gambles and make back the £3
compared two groups. 30 regular gamblers (played fruit machines more than once a week)/ 30 non regular gamblers (who played less than once a month)
griffths recorded the gamblers verbalisations - thinking aloud method. (dependent variable)
investigate cognitive biases involved in gambling behaviour - took place in an amusement arcade
findings: RG believed they were more skilled than they were
RG were more likely to make irrational statements
the machine hates me
i'm only going to put one quid in to start with...it bluffs the machine
26/30 regular gamblers believed success was either due to skill or equally chance and skill. majority of the non regular gamblers believed the game was mostly chance
regular gamblers also explained losses by seeing near misses as near wins to justify their continuation
Griffiths conclusion + evaluation
RG had cognitive distortions about how close they came to winning and the nature of the machine
gambling may be maintained through irrational beliefs
high ecological validity: study was carried out in an actual amusement arcade on a typical fruit machine
demand characteristics: the ppts were aware they were being studied and may gave responded when verbalising their thoughts, playing fruit machine or responding to the interview in ways they thought the experimenter wanted them to
rogers 1998
examine cognitive biases amongst those who but lottery tickets
found evidence of cognitive biases in the reasoning behind buying a lottery ticket
research support
eg. a belief in personal luck, the illusion of control, unrealistic optimism
suggests that cognitive biases exist across other forms of gambling
real world application
can help address faulty thinking and correct cognitive biases, replacing irrational thoughts with more rational ones
implications for treatment - CBT
social factors
someone may be struggling with money and be motivated to gamble because of the prospect of a big win that could easily resolve their money worries
role of social factors needs to be considered and perhaps combined with cognitive factors