Addictive behaviour-Cognitive Explanation- Gambling

Addictive behaviour-Cognitive Explanation- Gambling

1. AO1

   • Initiation
     • Coping: Gambling behaviour at first generates positive feelings and these generate positive thoughts and once created, these are difficult to change. The 'buzz' associated with winning can enhance these feelings and thoughts. It may also reduce boredom. Expectancy: casinos use the sight of others winning to encourage positive expectations about the success of gambling
   • Maintenance
     • Can be explained by Beck's vicious circle. Once started, gambling provides positive feelings (when they win) but generally will not win all the time and so can get into financial trouble and this leads to low mood which is escaped by my gambling.
       • Coping: they may continue gambling to feel better/relieve boredom- a win means their behaviour is seen positively
         • Self-efficacy: gambling may be maintained as people don't see it as a problem- they might not realise they are even gambling (e.g.:playing the lottery). Also the withdrawal symptoms of giving up are not as serious as smoking and so people believe they can give up at any time
           • Expectancy: (extremely important) Perceived benefits of gambling can be huge- stories in the media about large life-changing amounts of money being won on the lottery or on horse racing can fuel their behaviour. Dependent gamblers have irrational thoughts and distorted beliefs about their level of skill and luck so successes are due to skill and losing is due to bad luck. They also show illusory correlations- superstitions which they think help them win, e.g: blowing dice for a 6
   • Relapse
     • Withdrawal effects of gambling are not too serious (no illness ect) and so relapse just simply means they will win more money. As they feel they can stop at any time, a relapse is not seen s much of a problem. Relapse may also happen because life without gambling seems quite dull.

2. AO2

   • Initiation
     • Zuckerman (1979) claimed that there are individual differences in the need for optimal amounts of simulation. Sensation seekers look for varied or novel experiences. High sensations seekers have a lower appreciation of risk and anticipate arousal as more positive than do low sensations seekers. Tuckerman suggested a relationship between sensation seeking and gambling in which 'individuals entertain the risk of monetary loss for the positive reinforcement produced by states of high arousal produced by winning'. The pathological gambler is seen as a person who needs this intense stimulation and excitement
   • Maintenance
     • Bakszczynski et at (1990) found that poor tolerance for boredom may contribute to repetitive gambling behaviour. They found that pathological gamblers had significantly higher boredom proneness scores than a control group of non-gamblers. There were no significant differences between the different types of gambling (e.g. betting on horses, slot machines ect)
       • Lack of research support- The claim that gamblers should be higher sensation seekers than non-gamblers has received little support from research. For example, Coventry and Brown (1993) found that those who exclusively betted on horse racing in an off-course betting shop were actually lower on sensation seeking than non-gamblers
         • The nature of gambling- although Coventry and Brown found that people who bet on horse racing were less sensation seeking than non-gamblers, they also found that casino gamblers were higher sensation seekers than the general population. These findings support the view that gambling cannot be seen as a homogenous activity
   • Relapse
     • Gruesser et al (2005) found that of those who relapsed, over 40% said they did so because they missed the thrill of gambling, supporting the idea of reinforcement as an important factor-supports theory as state that people often relapse because life without gambling seems 'dull'
       • Research found that pathological gamblers still had a physical response to cues even after abstinence for more than year as they have a reaction tot he cue in the environment, e.g. lights/ noises

3. General evaluation:

   • Cognitive model offer incomplete explanations. being based on expectation and beliefs, thus ignoring important biological factors (reductionist)
   • The relative success of cognitive behavioural treatments suggest that addiction must have a cognitive component (real life applications)
   • Cognitive explanations help explain individual differences, i.e.: why everyone who plays slot machines doesn't become addicted ( some develop faulty cognitive biases)
   • Cognitive explanations are better at explaining some addictions such as gambling or video games but less so for chemical addictions like heroin or smoking
   • Research often relies on self-report techniques despite evidence to suggest that this kind of data is vulnerable to social desirability ( Gaes et al, 1978)
   • Cognitive approach believes addictive behaviour is based on false beliefs. By correcting these people can exercise their freewill and remove their addictive behaviour. A move from behaviour that is determined to that which is a product of freewill