Addiction - Individual - Cognitive Biases Flashcards
What are cognitive biases?
Cognitive biases are our natural tendency to make information match either what we want to believe or what we already believe.
E.g. Humans have a fundamental need to think of themselves as good people. Therefore, we pay more attention to information that suggests we are a good person, and we pay less attention to information that suggests we aren’t. Everybody has cognitive biases, not just addicts
What causes a cognitive bias?
Cognitive Biases are caused by heuristics, heuristics are mental shortcuts that help us to make quick decisions but they can often lead to errors in thinking. These errors may be able to explain why some people gamble addictively even though it is illogical.
What are the two types of heuristics that relate to gambling?
representativeness and availability.
Both these heuristics involve thinking we can predict unpredictable events.
What is the ‘Representativeness Heuristic’
Representativeness Heuristic: thinking an outcome is ‘due’ based on previous events.
E.G if we flip heads 3 times in a row, we might think a tails is ‘due’ even though the odds haven’t changed from 50/50.
This is the gambler’s fallacy - Gamblers may feel that after a run of losing bets they are “due” a win, and so may persist in gambling behaviour.
What is the ‘Availability Heuristic’ and how is this exploited in day to day life?
Availability Heuristic:
This is where events are more easily recalled from memory can bias our judgement – pleasant memories of us winning £20 on the lottery are more pleasant than the 50 cards we bought that won us nothing. This also applies to other people as well, as we constantly hear about other people winning but never the millions of people who never win.
The casinos exploit this by placing machines close to each other so each individual can hear others winning - making them believe they are likely to win too!
Additionally, when the jackpot on a betting machine is won, there is usually a lot of noise e.g. the satisfying sound of the coins being dispensed. However, when the gambler loses, the machine is silent.
What is the KEY STUDY that relates to cognitive biases?
Key Study: Griffiths (1994)
found support for cognitive biases when investigating the thinking processes of gamblers. Participants were informed to verbalise the thoughts they were having whilst gambling. It was found that 14% of the regular gamblers’ verbalisations were irrational, compared to just 2.5% of the non-regular gamblers.
What are the four types of cognitive biases?
Illusion of control:Many gamblers will falsely believe that ifthey can control some aspects of the process then their chancesof success will be improved. Forexample,they believe theymight win if they choose a particular seat at a roulette table.
Hindsight bias:A gambler will claim that they are not surprisedby the outcome of a gamble and could have predicted what theoutcome would be. This helps them to maintain the belief thatonce their skills haveimproved,they will be able to win moreconsistently.
Self-serving bias:This is the tendency of gamblers to attributeany wins to internal causes such as their own skill, and anylosses to external factors such as bad luck. This helps them tofeel it is not their fault if they lose and they should thereforecontinue to gamble.
Attentional bias: when an addict is paying attention to certain stimuli and ignoring other things in the environment. The bias increases the motivation to take part in the behaviour in the first place. Then the addict pays more attention to stimuli relating to the addiction which helps explain maintenance and even relapse. This can be seen in a STROOP TEST.
What is one strengths of the Cognitive Bias explanation of Addiction
Strength 1:
Supporting evidence for cognitive biases in the form of Griffiths as there was a huge difference in the difference of irrational thoughts in gamblers compared to non-gamblers.
What is another strengths of the Cognitive Bias explanation of Addiction
Strength 2:
Strength – approach can be used to modify behaviour in the form of cognitive restructuring. Griffths suggested we play the irrational thoughts back to the patients which would likely make them view gambling differently.
What is one weakness of the Cognitive Bias explanation of Addiction
Weakness 1:
Lack of cause and effect, The approach is good at describing why people choose to gamble but does not explain where these thoughts come from and why some people have them and others don’t.
This means the theory could be considered descriptive rather than explanatory, we cannot make any predictions about people’s behaviour from this theory.
What is another weakness of the Cognitive Bias explanation of Addiction
Weakness 2:
Limited usefulness / as this explanation only applies to a gambling addiction - gambling is different from other types of addiction where the risks are easier to understand such as alcohol as the risk of gambling is based on maths and probability. This lack of understanding causes the addicts to use heuristics for their decision making rather than logic
