Addiction: Cognitive Explanation Of Addiction Flashcards
Outline the cognitive explanation for gambling addiction.
> The mind processes information like a computer, guiding behaviour based on past experiences. Despite frequent losses, gambling addicts continue to gamble, suggesting a flaw in their ability to process information about the probability of winning.
Cognitive psychologists explain this faulty information processing as a result of cognitive bias. These are systematic errors in thinking that lead gambling addicts to expect that continuing to gamble will be profitable.
What are the FOUR conditions underlying the the cognitive biases?
— Illusion of control: Cognitive biases relating to an illusion of control cause people to incorrectly judge the extent to which an outcome can be controlled. By overestimating their ability to influence the outcome of an event, gamblers with this bias irrationally overestimate their chances of winning.
— Very high internal locus of control people are likely to experience a stronger illusion of control than those with an external locus of control.
— Recall biases are a type of cognitive bias that describes the tendency to remember wins and forget, underestimate or rationalise the losses. This cognitive bias means that a series of losses will not necessarily act as an incentive to stop gambling. Because the pathological gambler has a memory of typically winning, they form an expectation that the benefits of continuing to gamble outweigh the costs.
— Faulty perceptions are distorted perception about the odds of winning. The best known example of this category result in a distorted perception about the odds of winning. The best known example of this category is gamblers fallacy. This is the belief that a losing streak will increase the chance of subsequently winning.
What research support is there for the cognitive explanation of gambling addiction?
Studying regular and irregular gamblers in a real casino, Griffiths (1994) found that the regular
gamblers were more likely to make irrational utterances (e.g., saying they had tricked a fruit machine) than non-regular gamblers. These utterances suggest that the regular gamblers believed they could influence the outcome of
betting on a fruit machine, a belief indicative of the illusion of control cognitive bias. This finding
supports the cognitive approach’s explanation for gambling addiction as it shows that the type of
people who gamble regularly (i.e. those at risk of developing a gambling addiction) are prone to
cognitive biases linked to gambling addiction. However, the things people say in gambling situations
might be frivolous off-the-cuff remarks that do not necessarily represent what they really think. This means the use of utterance data may lack face validity as a way of assessing how gamblers actually think.
Why is a limitation of cognitive explanations for gambling that they offer a limited explanation.
Some types of gambling, like slot machine gambling, seems to be affected more by cognitivebiases than other types, like sports betting. This suggests the cognitive explanation offers a limited explanation of gambling addiction because these variations are not easily explained by the cognitive explanation. If people only become gambling addicts because they incorrectly process the probabilities of winning, then it’s unclear why these biases affect some types of gambling addiction more than others. Arguably, reducing an explanation for gambling down to a set of specific cognitive biases may be too simplistic. It’s likely that other levels of explanation are relevant (e.g., neurochemistry, genetics and
environmental factors). Ultimately, it seems likely that no single level of explanation is sufficient to explain gambling addiction. It’s likely that a more holistic approach is needed. For example, the bio psychosocial model suggests many pathways to addiction, with cognitive biases being just one contributing factor
What support is there that the cognitive explanation for gambling has real life implications?
Petry (2006) randomly assigned gambling addicts to a control group (Gamblers Anonymous meetings) or a treatment group (Gamblers Anonymous plus 8 CBT sessions targeting irrational thinking). After 12 months, the treatment group gambled significantly less than the control group. This study’s finding that CBT is an effective treatment for gambling addiction supports the cognitive explanation for gambling addiction, as if its explanation was not valid, then we could not expect that the treatments developed using its ideas would work. Moreover, the fact that the explanation can produce effective treatments shows that the explanation is of practical use, rather than just abstract theoretical interest. Furthermore, this study’s support for the cognitive explanation is strengthened by its use of a control group. This strengthens this study’s internal validity as it allows for a clear comparison between those receiving CBT and those who did not,
demonstrating that the reduction in gambling behaviour is specifically due to the CBT intervention.
