Wu Yin, Kennedy Dawn, Goshko Caylee-Britt, Clark Luke
School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China; Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Affective and Social Cognitive Science, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
Centre for Gambling Research at UBC, Department of Psychology and Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Addict Behav. 2021 Jan;112:106622. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2020.106622. Epub 2020 Aug 26.
Counterfactual thinking is a component of human decision-making that entails "if only" thinking about unselected choices and outcomes. It is associated with strong emotional responses of regret (when the obtained outcome is inferior to the counterfactual) and relief (vice versa). Counterfactual thinking may play a role in various cognitive phenomena in disordered gambling, such as the effects of near-misses. This study compared individuals with gambling disorder (n = 46) and healthy controls (n = 25) on a behavioural economic choice task that entailed choosing between two gambles, designed to measure counterfactual thinking. Participants provided affect ratings following both the obtained and the non-obtained outcomes. Choices were analyzed using a computational model that derived parameters reflecting sensitivity to expected value, risk variance, and anticipated regret. In the computational choice model, the group with gambling disorder showed increased sensitivity to anticipated regret, reduced sensitivity to expected value, and increased preference for high risk-variance gambles. On the affect ratings, the group with gambling disorder displayed blunted emotional sensitivity to obtained and counterfactual outcomes. Effect sizes of the group differences were modest. Participants with gambling disorder show wide-ranging alterations in decision-making processes and emotional reactivity to choice outcomes. Altered sensitivity to anticipatory regret in gambling disorder may contribute to the development of gambling-related cognitive distortions, and the influences of gambling marketing.
反事实思维是人类决策的一个组成部分，它需要对未被选择的选择和结果进行“要是……就好了”的思考。它与强烈的情感反应相关，即当获得的结果不如反事实结果时产生的遗憾，以及相反情况时产生的宽慰。反事实思维可能在无序赌博的各种认知现象中起作用，比如差点赢的影响。本研究在一项行为经济选择任务中比较了患有赌博障碍的个体（n = 46）和健康对照组（n = 25），该任务要求在两种赌博之间进行选择，旨在测量反事实思维。参与者在获得和未获得结果后都提供了情感评分。使用一个计算模型对选择进行分析，该模型得出反映对预期价值、风险方差和预期遗憾敏感度的参数。在计算选择模型中，患有赌博障碍的组对预期遗憾的敏感度增加，对预期价值的敏感度降低，并且对高风险方差赌博的偏好增加。在情感评分方面，患有赌博障碍的组对获得的和反事实的结果表现出情感敏感度降低。组间差异的效应大小适中。患有赌博障碍的参与者在决策过程和对选择结果的情绪反应方面表现出广泛的改变。赌博障碍中对预期遗憾的敏感度改变可能有助于与赌博相关的认知扭曲的发展以及赌博营销的影响。
