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Published on: September 19, 2012
Strategic and non-strategic problem gamblers differ on decision-making under risk and ambiguity
Felicity K Lorains1, Nicki A Dowling, Peter G Enticott
1School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Vic., Australia.
Aims:
To analyse problem gamblers' decision-making under conditions of risk and ambiguity, investigate underlying psychological factors associated with their choice behaviour and examine whether decision-making differed in strategic (e.g., sports betting) and non-strategic (e.g., electronic gaming machine) problem gamblers.
Design:
Cross-sectional study.
Setting:
Out-patient treatment centres and university testing facilities in Victoria, Australia.
Participants:
Thirty-nine problem gamblers and 41 age, gender and estimated IQ-matched controls.
Measurements:
Decision-making tasks included the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and a loss aversion task. The Prospect Valence Learning (PVL) model was used to provide an explanation of cognitive, motivational and response style factors involved in IGT performance.
Findings:
Overall, problem gamblers performed more poorly than controls on both the IGT (P = 0.04) and the loss aversion task (P = 0.01), and their IGT decisions were associated with heightened attention to gains (P = 0.003) and less consistency (P = 0.002). Strategic problem gamblers did not differ from matched controls on either decision-making task, but non-strategic problem gamblers performed worse on both the IGT (P = 0.006) and the loss aversion task (P = 0.02). Furthermore, we found differences in the PVL model parameters underlying strategic and non-strategic problem gamblers' choices on the IGT.
Conclusions:
Problem gamblers demonstrated poor decision-making under conditions of risk and ambiguity. Strategic (e.g. sports betting, poker) and non-strategic (e.g. electronic gaming machines) problem gamblers differed in decision-making and the underlying psychological processes associated with their decisions.
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