Griffiths 1994 â cognitive
/Griffiths 1994 – cognitive
Introduction:
Demonstrated that gamblers have irrational biases concerning gambling behaviour and use heuristics o Hindsight bias with players predicting events after they happen – “had a feeling it wasn’t going to pay much” o Erroneous perceptions – “I’m only going to put a quid in to state with because it bluffs the machine” o Personified the machine – “this machine doesn’t like me” – spend a lot of time with them o Unclear if heuristics depend on intrinsic or extrinsic factors o Suggested that irrational thinking is related to problematic gambling o Argued that cognitive biases reflect behaviour rather than cause it
Procedure:
29 male and 1 female regular gamblers 15 male and 15 female non-regular gamblers Hypotheses o No difference between regular and non-regular fruit machine gamblers on objective measures of skill o Regular gamblers would be more skill orientated than nonregular gamblers on subjective measures of self-report o Regular gamblers would produce more irrational verbalisations than non-regular gamblers
Six cognitive heuristics:
Illusion of control – belief that we can control random events such as choosing the winning lottery numbers or having a favourite fruit machine Flexible attributions – gamblers explain their own wins in terms of skill and their losses in terms of external factors such as bad luck or a fluke
Introduction:
Demonstrated that gamblers have irrational biases concerning gambling behaviour and use heuristics o Hindsight bias with players predicting events after they happen – “had a feeling it wasn’t going to pay much” o Erroneous perceptions – “I’m only going to put a quid in to state with because it bluffs the machine” o Personified the machine – “this machine doesn’t like me” – spend a lot of time with them o Unclear if heuristics depend on intrinsic or extrinsic factors o Suggested that irrational thinking is related to problematic gambling o Argued that cognitive biases reflect behaviour rather than cause it
Procedure:
29 male and 1 female regular gamblers 15 male and 15 female non-regular gamblers Hypotheses o No difference between regular and non-regular fruit machine gamblers on objective measures of skill o Regular gamblers would be more skill orientated than nonregular gamblers on subjective measures of self-report o Regular gamblers would produce more irrational verbalisations than non-regular gamblers
Six cognitive heuristics:
Illusion of control – belief that we can control random events such as choosing the winning lottery numbers or having a favourite fruit machine Flexible attributions – gamblers explain their own wins in terms of skill and their losses in terms of external factors such as bad luck or a fluke
