Aïte Ania, Barrault Servane, Cassotti Mathieu, Borst Grégoire, Bonnaire Céline, Houdé Olivier, Varescon Isabelle, Moutier Sylvain
*National Center for Scientific Research Unit 8240, Laboratory for the Psychology of Child Development and Education, Paris Descartes University (IUPDP), Sorbonne Paris Cité †Caen University, France ‡Laboratory of Psychopathology and Health Processes, Paris Descartes University (IUPDP), Sorbonne Paris Cité, France §Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France.
Cogn Behav Neurol. 2014 Jun;27(2):59-67. doi: 10.1097/WNN.0000000000000027.
We investigated whether alexithymia is at the root of the decision-making deficit classically reported in pathological gamblers.
Alexithymia has been shown to be a recurrent personality trait of pathological gamblers and to impair the decision-making abilities of nonpathological gamblers, but no previous studies have investigated whether alexithymia significantly affects pathological gamblers' decision making. Although investigations of pathological gamblers typically have studied those seeking treatment, most pathological gamblers do not seek treatment. Thus, to study people representative of the general population of pathological gamblers, we conducted our study in "sportsbook" casinos with a small sample of gamblers who were not seeking treatment.
We recruited gamblers in sportsbooks and classified them based on their scores on the South Oaks Gambling Screen and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale: 3 groups of pathological gamblers (6 alexithymic, 8 possibly alexithymic, and 6 nonalexithymic) and 8 healthy controls. All of the participants completed an adaptation of the Iowa Gambling Task.
The alexithymic group chose less advantageously on the task than the other groups. The severity of the deficit in decision-making abilities was related to the severity of alexithymia, even when we controlled for the effects of anxiety and depression.
Our findings provide preliminary evidence that alexithymia might be a critical personality trait underlying pathological gamblers' decision-making deficits.
我们调查了述情障碍是否是病态赌徒中经典报道的决策缺陷的根源。
述情障碍已被证明是病态赌徒反复出现的人格特质，并会损害非病态赌徒的决策能力，但此前尚无研究调查述情障碍是否会显著影响病态赌徒的决策。尽管对病态赌徒的调查通常研究那些寻求治疗的人，但大多数病态赌徒并不寻求治疗。因此，为了研究代表病态赌徒总体人群的样本，我们在“体育博彩”赌场对一小部分未寻求治疗的赌徒进行了研究。
我们在体育博彩场所招募赌徒，并根据他们在南橡树赌博筛查量表和多伦多述情障碍量表上的得分进行分类：3组病态赌徒（6名述情障碍者、8名可能有述情障碍者和6名非述情障碍者）和8名健康对照者。所有参与者都完成了爱荷华赌博任务的改编版。
述情障碍组在任务中的选择不如其他组有利。即使我们控制了焦虑和抑郁的影响，决策能力缺陷的严重程度仍与述情障碍的严重程度相关。
我们的研究结果提供了初步证据，表明述情障碍可能是病态赌徒决策缺陷背后的关键人格特质。
