Department of Psychology, Università degli Studi della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", Viale Ellittico, 31, 81100, Caserta, Italy.
Psychology Department, Nottingham Trent University, Burton Street, Nottingham, NG1 4FQ, United Kingdom.
J Affect Disord. 2020 Jul 1;272:496-500. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2020.03.144. Epub 2020 May 1.
Previous research has emphasized the importance of attentional bias in the maintenance of both adult and adolescent disordered gambling. There is a substantial body of empirical evidence demonstrating facilitated attention and difficulty in disengagement from gambling stimuli among disordered gamblers, but no study has ever experimentally investigated the association between attentional bias and risk-taking behavior in gambling. The aim of the present study was to examine the interrelationship between attentional bias for gambling stimuli, risk-taking attitude, and severity of gambling involvement.
The present study recruited 70 male adults from gambling venues to participate in the experiment. Gambling severity, attentional bias, and risk-taking were assessed utilizing the South Oaks Gambling Screen, the Modified Posner Task, and the Balloon Analogue Risk Task, respectively.
Disordered gamblers showed greater readiness to detect gambling stimuli and took more risks than non-disordered gamblers. Regression analysis showed that being of a young age, automatic facilitated attention for gambling cues, and risk-proneness significantly predicted problem gambling. Additionally, a path analysis was performed to test if automatic facilitated attention towards gambling was on the path from risk-taking to gambling severity, or if risk-taking mediated the impact of facilitation biases on gambling severity. The results indicated that attentional bias predicted gambling severity both directly and indirectly via risk-taking.
The modest sample size and the absence of female gamblers limited the generalizability of the results.
The present findings are compatible with the view that an automatic detection of gambling stimuli is responsible for greater riskiness that, in turn, fosters gambling problems.
先前的研究强调了注意偏向在维持成人和青少年赌博障碍中的重要性。有大量的实证证据表明，赌博障碍者对赌博刺激存在注意易化和注意脱抑制困难，但没有研究曾在实验上调查过注意偏向与赌博中的冒险行为之间的关系。本研究旨在考察对赌博刺激的注意偏向、冒险态度和赌博卷入程度之间的相互关系。
本研究从赌博场所招募了 70 名男性成年人参与实验。赌博严重程度、注意偏向和冒险行为分别采用 South Oaks 赌博筛查量表、修正 Posner 任务和气球模拟风险任务进行评估。
赌博障碍者比非赌博障碍者更容易发现赌博刺激，也更愿意冒险。回归分析表明，年龄较轻、对赌博线索的自动易化注意以及冒险倾向显著预测了问题赌博。此外，还进行了路径分析以检验对赌博的自动易化注意是否是从冒险行为到赌博严重程度的路径，或者冒险行为是否中介了促进偏向对赌博严重程度的影响。结果表明，注意偏向直接和间接地通过冒险行为预测了赌博严重程度。
样本量较小且缺乏女性赌徒，限制了结果的普遍性。
本研究结果与以下观点一致，即对赌博刺激的自动检测导致更大的冒险性，进而促进了赌博问题。
