Philander Kahlil S, Gainsbury Sally M
School of Hospitality Business Management, Carson College of Business, Washington State University, Everett, WA, United States.
Science Faculty, Brain and Mind Centre, School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia.
Front Psychol. 2021 Jan 12;11:609731. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.609731. eCollection 2020.
Previous research has demonstrated that attitudes are a primary determinant of intention to gamble on electronic gaming machines (EGMs) consistent with the Theory of Reasoned Action. This paper aims to address how biases in judgment can contribute to attitudes and subsequently behavior, including maladaptive problematic gambling behavior. We take a novel approach by viewing overconfidence in one's understanding of how outcomes are determined on EGMs as an indication of cognitive distortions. The novelty of this paper is further increased as we compare attitudes to existing EGMs with novel EGMs which include a skill component, referred to as skill-based gaming machines (SGMs), which enables a better controlled comparison between actual and perceived skill. In Study 1, 232 US-based participants were recruited online who were shown various slot machines and SGMs and asked a series of questions about perceived skill and chance in determining outcomes to assess their understanding, then were asked their confidence in their understanding, attitudes toward the machines and they completed the Problem Gambling Severity Index. In Study 2, 246 Australian participants were recruited through community and university student samples; they attended a laboratory where they were randomly allocated to play a real EGM or SGM without money and completed the same measures as in Study 1. In Study 2, participants were randomly told that the outcomes on the machine they would play were determined entirely by chance, skill, or a mixture of both. In both studies, our findings suggest that there are more extreme values in overconfidence in how EGMs work, whereas individuals are more similar in their confidence in understanding SGMs. We also find a relationship between overconfidence in EGM understanding and positive attitudes toward EGMs, but no such relationship with SGMs. There was no impact from controlling for demographics, problem gambling severity, or labeling of machines on these relationships.
先前的研究表明，态度是与理性行动理论一致的在电子游戏机（EGM）上赌博意图的主要决定因素。本文旨在探讨判断偏差如何影响态度以及随后的行为，包括适应不良的问题赌博行为。我们采用了一种新颖的方法，将对自己对EGM结果如何确定的理解过度自信视为认知扭曲的一种表现。随着我们将对现有EGM的态度与包括技能成分的新型EGM（称为基于技能的游戏机，SGM）进行比较，本文的新颖性进一步提高，这使得在实际技能和感知技能之间能够进行更好的对照比较。在研究1中，通过网络招募了232名美国参与者，向他们展示了各种老虎机和SGM，并询问了一系列关于在确定结果时感知技能和机会的问题，以评估他们的理解，然后询问他们对自己理解的信心、对机器的态度，并让他们完成问题赌博严重程度指数。在研究2中，通过社区和大学生样本招募了246名澳大利亚参与者；他们参加了一个实验室，在那里被随机分配免费玩一台真正的EGM或SGM，并完成与研究1相同的测量。在研究2中，参与者被随机告知他们要玩的机器上的结果完全由机会、技能或两者混合决定。在两项研究中，我们的结果表明，在对EGM工作方式的过度自信方面存在更极端的值，而个体在对SGM理解的信心方面更为相似。我们还发现，对EGM理解的过度自信与对EGM的积极态度之间存在关联，但与SGM不存在这种关联。控制人口统计学、问题赌博严重程度或机器标签对这些关系没有影响。
