Aim: to investigate cognitive bias
involved in gambling behaviour.
Hypotheses
1) [Behavioural] Significant
differences in behaviour between
regular and non regular gamblers.
2) [Cognitive] Significant differences between the
thought processes of regular and non-regular gamblers.
3) Regular gamblers would describe themselves as highly
skilled, and believe that success in gambling is due to this skill.
4) Thinking aloud participants would take longer to
complete the task than non-thinking aloud participants.
60 participants. All had played
fruit machines at least once.
Self-selected: Poster advertisement
around a university and college campus.
Regular gamblers: 29M 1F- mean age 21.6yrs.
gambled on fruit machines at least once a week.
Non-regular gamblers: 15 M 15F- mean age
was 25.5 years. gamblers once a month or less.
Quasi- experimental.
IV= regular/non-regular gamblers DV= [7] total no. of plays,
minutes of play in session, plays per minute, total winnings,
no. of wins per session, win rate (time), win rate (plays).
Half of the regular and
non-regular gamblers were
randomly assigned to the
'thinking aloud' condition.
Procedure
All subjects tested individually in a real arcade. Each participant
started playing with £3 (equivalent of 30 plays) and were asked
to stay on the machine for 60 plays, meaning that they had to
break even [quan]. After playing, they were interviewed [qual].
Thinking Aloud- Participants were
told to verbalise all of their
thoughts whilst playing. This was
recorded through a microphone on
a lapel. All tapes were transcribed
within 48 hours.
Results
Regular gamblers made significantly more verbalisations in
personifying the machine (e.g. "the machine likes me") and
referring to the 'number system' (e.g. "I got a 2 there").
Non regular gamblers made significantly more
verbalisations relating to confusion and non-understanding.
Regular gamblers used a variety of heuristics:
Flexible attributions: "I'm not doing to well
here", "This fruity is not in a good mood".
Illusions of control: "I'm only
gonna put a quid in to start
[...], it bluffs the machine"
Personification:
"This machine
doesn't like me."
Regular gamblers made more irrational verbalisations
than non regular gamblers. 14% of the regular
gamblers verbalisations were irrational comments
compared to 2.5% of the non regular gamblers.
Conclusions
Regular gamblers use cognitive
biases when gambling. e.g.
illusion of control- regular
gamblers believed that winning
was due to skill rather than luck.
Regular
gamblers were
more likely to
express
irrational
verbalisations
e.g. swearing
at the machine.
All 4 hypotheses were
supported.
1) No difference between reg
and non reg gamblers.
Regular gamblers only stayed
on the machines longer.
4) Gamblers who thought
aloud took longer to gamble,
but not significantly.
2) Regular gamblers referred
to winning and non regular
gamblers expressed confusion
and lack of understanding.
3) Suggests that gamblers have
an illusion of control over the
machines: for example, some
gamblers objected to being told
which machine to use.
Background
Heuristics are a set of rules for solving problems.
Cognitive Bias': llusion of control, flexible attributions,
representativeness, availability bias, illusory
correlations and fixation on absolute frequency.
Evaluation
Strengths
Qual and quan data [Triangulation]
: thinking aloud & no. of wins, etc.
high ecological validity: real arcade, real machines with real money.
Useful- supports use of cognitive behavioural therapy.
High controls increase reliability e.g. use of control group [NRG].
Weaknesses
Sample- not generalisable
[androcentric, only from one area].
Demand Characteristics- behaviour recorded by standing next to
participants, may have changed their behaviour e.g. not swearing.