Outcome Expectancies for Gambling: Empirical Modeling of a Memory Network in Federal Prison Inmates

Outcome expectancies for gambling were explored in a group of 316 male medium security federal inmates with the multidimensional scaling statistical technique. Sixty-six possible outcomes for gambling were reduced to 16 after a factor analysis determined that 75% of the total variance was accounted for by the first 16 factors (eigenvalues > 0.75). The highest loading item for each factor was utilized in all subsequent analyses. Multidimensional scaling of these 16 items revealed the presence of two primary dimensions (positive-negative and arousing-sedating), corroborating previous research on alcohol outcome expectancies (Rather et al., 1992) and general affective response (Russell, 1980). Significant group (non-gambling, non-problem gambling, possible problem gambling, probable pathological gambling) differences were observed on 12 of the 16 items and on 3 of 4 composite scales (positive expectancies, negative expectancies, arousing expectancies, sedating expectancies).