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Problem Gambling ‘Fuelled on the Fly’

Problem gambling is a gambling disorder often described as continued gambling in the face of increasing losses. In this article, we explored problem gambling behaviour and its psychological determinants. We considered the assumption of stability in risky preferences, anticipated by both normative an...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Teal, Joseph, Kusev, Petko, Heilman, Renata, Martin, Rose, Passanisi, Alessia, Pace, Ugo
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8392478/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34444355
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18168607
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author Teal, Joseph
Kusev, Petko
Heilman, Renata
Martin, Rose
Passanisi, Alessia
Pace, Ugo
author_facet Teal, Joseph
Kusev, Petko
Heilman, Renata
Martin, Rose
Passanisi, Alessia
Pace, Ugo
author_sort Teal, Joseph
collection PubMed
description Problem gambling is a gambling disorder often described as continued gambling in the face of increasing losses. In this article, we explored problem gambling behaviour and its psychological determinants. We considered the assumption of stability in risky preferences, anticipated by both normative and descriptive theories of decision making, as well as recent evidence that risk preferences are in fact ‘constructed on the fly’ during risk elicitation. Accordingly, we argue that problem gambling is a multifaceted disorder, which is ‘fueled on the fly’ by a wide range of contextual and non-contextual influences, including individual differences in personality traits, hormonal and emotional activations. We have proposed that the experience of gambling behaviour in itself is a dynamic experience of events in time series, where gamblers anchor on the most recent event—typically a small loss or rare win. This is a highly adaptive, but erroneous, decision-making mechanism, where anchoring on the most recent event alters the psychological representations of substantial and accumulated loss in the past to a representation of negligible loss. In other words, people feel better while they gamble. We conclude that problem gambling researchers and policy makers will need to employ multifaceted and holistic approaches to understand problem gambling.
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spelling pubmed-83924782021-08-28 Problem Gambling ‘Fuelled on the Fly’ Teal, Joseph Kusev, Petko Heilman, Renata Martin, Rose Passanisi, Alessia Pace, Ugo Int J Environ Res Public Health Review Problem gambling is a gambling disorder often described as continued gambling in the face of increasing losses. In this article, we explored problem gambling behaviour and its psychological determinants. We considered the assumption of stability in risky preferences, anticipated by both normative and descriptive theories of decision making, as well as recent evidence that risk preferences are in fact ‘constructed on the fly’ during risk elicitation. Accordingly, we argue that problem gambling is a multifaceted disorder, which is ‘fueled on the fly’ by a wide range of contextual and non-contextual influences, including individual differences in personality traits, hormonal and emotional activations. We have proposed that the experience of gambling behaviour in itself is a dynamic experience of events in time series, where gamblers anchor on the most recent event—typically a small loss or rare win. This is a highly adaptive, but erroneous, decision-making mechanism, where anchoring on the most recent event alters the psychological representations of substantial and accumulated loss in the past to a representation of negligible loss. In other words, people feel better while they gamble. We conclude that problem gambling researchers and policy makers will need to employ multifaceted and holistic approaches to understand problem gambling. MDPI 2021-08-14 /pmc/articles/PMC8392478/ /pubmed/34444355 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18168607 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Teal, Joseph
Kusev, Petko
Heilman, Renata
Martin, Rose
Passanisi, Alessia
Pace, Ugo
Problem Gambling ‘Fuelled on the Fly’
title Problem Gambling ‘Fuelled on the Fly’
title_full Problem Gambling ‘Fuelled on the Fly’
title_fullStr Problem Gambling ‘Fuelled on the Fly’
title_full_unstemmed Problem Gambling ‘Fuelled on the Fly’
title_short Problem Gambling ‘Fuelled on the Fly’
title_sort problem gambling ‘fuelled on the fly’
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8392478/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34444355
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18168607
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