Cognitive, Dispositional, and Psychophysiological Correlates of Dependent Slot Machine Gambling in Young People

Cognitive, Dispositional, and Psychophysiological Correlates of Dependent Slot Machine Gambling in

Young People

DOUGLAS CAR ROLL^ Glasgow Caledonian University

Glasgow, Scotland

JUSTINE A. A. HUXLEY University of Birmingham

Birmingham, England

In Study 1, young dependent and nondependent slot machine gamblers were interviewed, assessed for locus of control and administered the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Dependent gamblers were revealed as reliably more internal in terms of locus of control than their nondependent counterparts, and, in the interview, were much more likely to affirm that they could exercise control over the slot machines they played. Dependent gamblers registered higher psychoticism scores than both the nondependent gamblers and appropriate age-group norms. Their high psychoticism scores resonated well with interview revelations that boredom mitigation frequent underlay dependent gambling.

In Study 2, blood pressure was monitored in dependent and nondependent gamblers at rest and before, during and after slot machine play. Subjects were given €5 for this purpose and the time it took them to use up this money was recorded, as was the extent of any returns they received. They were also asked how much they expected to recoup. The €5 lasted a similar amount of time for the two groups, and they managed similar rates of return on their stake. However, the dependent gamblers expected to win more than the nondependent gamblers and their estimates of returns exceeded what they actually recouped. Slot machine play was associated with an increase in blood pressure, and while groups did not differ in terms of the magnitude of the rise provoked, there was a general trend for dependent gamblers to show lower basal levels of cardiovascular activity, although this was statistically reliable only in the case of diastolic blood pressure.

Legislation relating to slot machines in the United Kingdom is exception- ally liberal. At present, the only restrictions on young people’s access stem from the British Amusement and Catering Trade Association’s (BACTA) voluntary code of conduct, which prohibits those under 16 years of age from entering amusement parlors. However, the code does not apply to seaside towns, does not bind owners of amusement parlors who are not members of the association, and does not apply to nonparlor sites. In addition, it is a common-

’Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Douglas Carroll, Department of Psychology, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow G4 OB4, Scotland.

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Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1994, 24, 12, pp. 1070-1083. Copyright 0 1994 by V. H. Winston 8 Son, Inc. All rights reserved.

SLOT-MACHINE GAMBLING 1071

place observation that the code is sometimes applied in a lax manner by those parlor owners who are BACTA members (e.g., Huxley & Carroll, 1992). This is in sharp contrast to the much stricter regulation of slot machine access elsewhere in the world. In the United States, for example, slot machines are permitted in eight states only and the legal age limit is either 18 or 21. In Australia slot machines are again largely restricted to certain states and to special venues, such as rugby league football clubs and retired servicemen’s clubs, for which membership is limited to those over the age of 18. Similar age restrictions characterize access in virtually all European countries which per- mit slot machines.

While other countries are not without problems related to slot machine gambling (Griffiths, Lea, & Webley, 1989) it would appear that the heavy involvement of young people is a particularly British phenomenon. Organiza- tions such as Gamblers Anonymous (GA) in the United Kingdom report an increasingly large number of young people seeking help for problems relating to excessive or uncontrolled slot machine use. In 1964, the typical GA member was a 40 to 50-year-old horse race gambler; by 1986, approximately 50% of new members were slot machine users, half of these being adolescents (Moody, 1987).

Given this context, it is hardly surprising that the bulk of the research on young people and slot machines has been conducted in the United Kingdom. However, it constitutes anything but a substantial literature. Most of it com- prises questionnaire surveys concerned mainly with the prevalence of slot machine gambling among the young: (a) its association with broad demo- graphic variables, such as age and gender, on one hand; and (b) its possible consequences for delinquent behaviors, such as truanting and stealing, on the other.

The major surveys that have been published to date are summarized in Table 1 , which lists the sample size, age range, and percentage considered to be regular users of slot machines. Given variations in sample size and compo- sition, the context and nature of the questions posed, the different operationali- zations of “regular,” discrepancies in the apparent incidence of regular playing are to be expected. Nevertheless, taken together the surveys of young people’s gambling habits reveal that around half of those sampled admit to playing slot machines at some time or another. Slot machine gambling is a rare or occa- sional activity [for the vast majority of these]. For a minority, however, it would appear to be a much more consuming pursuit. The best estimate from the survey literature is that somewhere between 3 and 6% of young people engage in slot machine gambling to an extent that could intimate dependency (Carroll & Huxley, in press, for a detailed review). Carroll and Huxley (in press) also summarized what seem to be the other major findings. First, the earlier the

1072 CARROLL AND HUXLEY

Table 1

Surveys of Young People and Slot Machine Use

Authors Sample Age %Regular

size range users

Waterman & Atkin (1985) Huff & Collinson (1 987) Barham & Cornell (1987) Spectrum Children’s Trust (1988) National Housing and Town Planning

Graham (1 988) Huxley & Carroll (1992) Fisher (1993)

Council (1988)

45 1 100 329

2,423

9,752 1,946 1,332

460

14-18 15-2 1 11-16 11-16

13-16 10-16 11-15 11-16

6.3 14.0 5.0 8.7

3.0 <0.5

6.0 5.7

initiation into slot machine gambling, the more likely it is that regular playing and possible dependency will develop (Fisher, in press; Huxley & Carroll, 1992). Second, expenditure appears to be related to frequency of play, but not merely as a simple arithmetic function; more frequent play is associated with greater expenditure per session of play as well as greater overall expenditure.

A significant number of young people appear to be spending all of their available income on slot machines and occasionally the amounts invested exceed income. It might be expected, then, that some young slot machine users will resort to borrowing or even stealing to support their gambling. The survey data indicate this to be the case. In addition, surveys which examined the association between truanting, borrowing, and stealing, and the extent of gambling, whether in terms of regularity or expenditure, report substantial positive relationships (e.g., Huxley & Carroll, 1992; National Housing and Town Planning Council, 1988).

In sum, the survey data confirm that a small, but, in population terms, hardly negligible proportion of young slot machine players appear to be dis- playing characteristics of dependency. However, we have, as yet, no clear understanding of the potential mechanisms of dependency in this context. Recent explanatory models of adult pathological gambling, though, undoubt- edly offer clues. These have tended to be multifactional in character (e.g., Brown, 1986; Dickerson & Adcock, 1987), and, although retaining early notions, such as variable financial reinforcement schedules (Skinner, 1953) as


part of the explanatory matrix, incorporate a range of other factors, most prominent among which are cognitive bias, personal disposition, and arousal (Carroll & Huxley, in press).

Two studies were undertaken to determine whether such factors are implicated in dependency among young slot machine players. In both studies dependent and nondependent young gamblers were compared on a number of pertinent measures. Cognitive bias was operationalized in Study 1 in terms of locus of control (Rotter, 1966) and in Study 2 as the discrepancy between predicted and actual winnings from a given stake. Personal disposition was tapped using the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975) and arousal was indexed by systolic and diastolic blood pressure, measured at rest, and before, during and after slot machine play.

Study 1

Method

Subjects were recruited from amusement parlors in the City of Birmingham. Seventy-five respondents completed the protocol. Of these, 26 met the criteria (see below) of dependency, while 41 were revealed as nondependent. Six subjects were considered to be borderline and excluded from the analysis. Two other subjects who were formerly, but no longer, dependent were also excluded. All subjects bar one nondependent gambler were male. The groups were similar in terms of age (overall average age was 17.3 years, SD = 1.7) and on self-reported ethnicity (the majority were white). However, they did vary in occupational status, ~ ~ ( 5 ) = 1 1 . 2 3 , ~ < .05. A greater proportion of the dependent gamblers were unemployed (22% vs. 12%), whereas a higher percentage of nondependent gamblers were in secondary or further education (49% vs. 30%).

Subjects were interviewed using a fixed schedule of questions covering among other things: biographical details, how subjects started slot machine gambling, why they gambled, their feelings during gambling, beliefs about skill versus chance, the amounts spent, control over spending, and problems attendant on gambling. Those who spent over El0 per week and responded affirmatively to at least five of the following nine interview questions, analogous to those used in DSM-111 (American Psychiatric Association, 1987), were deemed to be dependent:

1. Do you ever gamble in order to win back money that you have lost

2. If you lost a lot of money on a slot machine one day, would you be gambling?

more or less likely to want to play again the following day?


3. Do you ever spend more than you intended to? 4. Do you ever spend money in a slot machine that you had intended to

5. Have you ever taken money from members of your family without

6. Have you ever stolen money from outside your family in order to

7. Are you worried that you are spending too much on slot machines? 8. Would you like to stop playing slot machines? 9. Does it bother you when you have no money to spend on slot

spend on something else?

telling them, to spend on slot machines?

play slot machines?

machines?

Following the interview, each subject completed the Locus of Control scale (Rotter, 1966) and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975).

Resu Its

As would be expected the two groups differed in terms of the number of times per week they played, t(65) = 4.72, p < .01, and the amount of money they reported spending per week on slot machine gambling, t(65) = 3.94, p < 0.1, The dependent subjects played on average five and a half times per week, spending on average €66 per week, while the analogous averages for the nondependent group were three times per week and €5.

The dependent group emerged as significantly more internal in terms of locus of control than the nondependent group, t(65) = 2.35,~ < .05. Respective means and standard deviations are presented in Table 2. Data from the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire for its major constituent dimensions are also summarized in Table 2 for both groups; also included are the population norms for males between 16 and 19 years of age. The two groups differed reliably only with respect to psychoticism. The dependent group registered much higher scores than the nondependent group, t(65) = 2.25, p < .05. In addition, the dependent groups’ psychoticism scores were substantially higher than those generally typical of young men of their age, t(25) = 3.63, p < .01.

Analysis of the interview data highlighted a number of interesting differences between dependent and nondependent slot machine gamblers, that com- plemented the questionnaire results. First of all, dependent gamblers were more likely than their nondependent counterparts to claim that slot machines involved skill and to attribute wins to their own abilities. The following two exchanges with the interviewer (JH), the first with a dependent and the second with a nondependent respondent, are typical of the differences in beliefs.


Table 2

Locus of Control, Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Psychoticism Scores for Dependent and Nondependent Slot Machine Gamblers and for a Normal Population of 16 to 19-Year-Old Young Men

Dependent Nondependent

SD X SD Norm - -

X

Locus of control 10.4 3.8 13.5 4.2 Extraversion 13.8 4.5 16.2 3.5 14.5 Neuroticism 10.9 4.1 10.8 5.0 10.7 Psychoticism 7.8 4.5 5.4 4.3 4.6

JH: R: Quite important. JH: R:

How important do you think skill is in winning?

Where does the skill come in? The gamble button, I think that’s skill.

In contrast, the nondependent gambler dismissed the idea that the gamble button was responsive to skill.

JH: R:

What about the gamble button? Oh that’s luck. It’ll gamble [between] 20 and 80 perhaps and it’s alternating very, very fast. That’s pure luck.

Second, while dependent gamblers did cite reasons for continued gambling centered around risk, suspense and uncertainty, more compelling by far was their constant reference to a broader affective context of boredom and boredom mitigation. The following exchange between the interviewer and a young dependent gambler is fairly typical:

JH: R: JH: Have you tried? R:

So you would like to stop playing? If I could, yeah. If there’s a cure for it I would.

I have, I have. It’s just when you’re bored, and when you’ve got money in your pocket .... you’re walking past shops in town looking


for clothes and seeing amusements like in Oasis [an amusement parlor] that you’ll see the machine, you’ll think I’ll have one go on it and you end up putting the money in that was for a €20 pair of jeans.

In contrast, the nondependent gamblers claimed to play slot machines for fun, entertainment, and because their friends did. Many of the dependent gamblers in the study recounted having gambled originally for similar reasons. However, few claimed to gamble for those reasons now. For the pathological gamblers fun and entertainment appeared to have given way to a compulsive quest for boredom relief.

Study 2

Method

Forty subjects were recruited from the same loci as in Study 1, and under- went a brief interview concerning current gambling behavior. However, given the discriminatory success of frequency of slot machine gambling and amount of money spent in Study 1, these simpler devices were used to classify subjects as dependent or nondependent in this study. Using such criteria, 16 young gamblers were characterized as dependent, 22 as nondependent, and two bor- derlines were excluded from the study. All subjects were male. In addition, the groups did not differ in terms of age (mean overall age was 17.8 years, SL) =

1.6), self-reported ethnicity (subjects were again predominantly white), or occupational status.

Given the classification criteria, it should come as no surprise that the groups differed markedly in terms of average amount spent per week and frequency of playing: €27 for the dependent subjects, as opposed to E5 for the nondependent subjects, t(36) = 6.47, p < .001; 5.6 times per week for the dependent subjects, as opposed to 2.9 times per week for the nondependent subjects, t(36) = 4 . 5 4 , ~ < .001.

Subjects were tested in situ in an amusement parlor. They were each given €5 to gamble with, and, at that time, asked to predict how much they would recoup with that original stake under two conditions: when playing a favorite slot machine and when playing an unfamiliar machine. Blood pressure was measured at 2-min intervals using an automatic recording device (Infrasonde, Model D4000). Subjects rested for 5 min following which three baseline measures were taken at 2-min intervals. One further measurement was taken 2 min prior to play, and measurements taken at 2-min intervals during play. Subjects were instructed to continue gambling until the €5 had been exhausted, but neither to collect nor reinvest any winnings they might accrue


during that time. A final measurement was taken 2 min after they had ceased play. The time taken to exhaust the E5 was noted, as was the extent of any winnings.

Results

Recording problems and failure to follow instructions reduced the effective sample size to 18 nondependent gamblers and 14 dependent gamblers. With regard to the time taken to exhaust the E5 provided the groups were similar: 5.4 min in the case of the dependent gamblers and 4.9 min for the nondependent gamblers. Nor did they differ in the amount recouped from the original E5 investment, €3.10 as against €3.00. Where the groups did differ, though, was in the winnings predicted. For a favorite machine, the dependent gamblers predicted winnings of E5.80, whereas the nondependent gamblers, on average, expected a more modest 54.40 return, a difference that did not quite reach the criterion for statistical significance using a two-tailed test, t(3 1) = 1 . 7 2 , ~ < .lo. However, the groups did differ unambiguously on the winnings expected from an unfamiliar machine: E4.50 in the case of the dependent gamblers as opposed to f2.80 for their nondependent counterparts, t(31) = 3.10, p < .01. Within-group comparison between predicted and actual winnings yielded only one statistically reliable effect. Dependent gamblers’ estimates of success on a familiar machine differed significantly from their actual winnings in the study, t(13) = 3 . 3 3 , ~ < .01, although there was a tendency for dependent gamblers to overestimate success even on an unfamiliar machine, t( 13) = 1 . 8 1 , ~ < .lo. The nondependent subjects were much more realistic in their predictions which did not depart reliably from their actual winnings.

Figure 1 displays the average systolic blood pressure measurements recorded for the two groups of subjects at rest, pregambling, during slot machine gambling, and postgambling. The resting values comprise the mean of the final two readings, and the values during gambling are averages of the first two readings recorded for each subject. A two-factor ANOVA (2 Groups x 4 Periods) applied to the systolic blood pressure measurements yielded a main effect of periods, F(3,93) = 1 5 . 6 0 , ~ < .001. Inspection of Figure 1 reveals the nature of the effect; systolic blood pressure rose just before gambling and was further elevated during play, declining to just above resting values following cessation of gambling. While the dependent gamblers registered lower systolic blood pressures than the nondependent gamblers for all measurement periods, save during play itself, neither the main effect of groups, F( 1, 3 l), nor the Groups x Periods interaction, F(3, 93), were statistically significant. The data for diastolic pressure are depicted in Figure 2. Again, there was a reliable periods effect, F(3,93) = 4 . 1 4 , ~ < .05, stemming from a broadly similar profile


150 - 141.1 I A O R

Resting Pre During Post

Period of Measurement

.Noridependent D e p e n d e n t

Figure I. Systolic blood pressure at rest, and before, during, and after slot machine play in young dependent and nondependent slot machine players.

Resting Pre During Post

Period of Measurement

Nondependent Dependent

Figure 2. Diastolic blood pressure at rest, and before, during, and after slot machine in play in young dependent and nondependent slot machine players.


of temporal changes. However, in the case of diastolic blood pressure, there was also a significant groups effects, 41, 31) = 4.14, p < .05. The dependent gamblers registered lower diastolic blood pressures throughout, although the difference is most striking during the initial resting period, following which there is some convergence. Comparison of DBP values at rest revealed that the two groups differed significantly, (31) = 2.59, p < .05. The Groups x Periods interaction was not significant, F(3,93) = 1.03, n s .

Discussion

The present studies afford at least preliminary evidence that young dependent slot machine players differ from their nondependent counterparts in a number of ways. First, to a greater extent than nondependent players, they display a general orientation which tends to attribute outcomes to internal factors such as skill rather than external factors such as luck. One of the most influential contributions to a cognitive psychology of gambling has been the work of Ellen Langer on the illusion of control (Langer, 1975, 1983). Langer defined the illusion of control as an expectancy of personal success inappro- priately higher than objective probability would warrant. In an elegant series of laboratory studies, Langer demonstrated that if devices conventionally characteristic of skill situations are introduced into chance situations, individuals will shift their expectations of success to levels better than chance. Contemporary slot machine design would seem optimally facilitative of this illusion of control, and it appears that some individuals are especially suscep- tible to such devices, possibly as a result of early exposure. Other research lends weight to the notion that an internal locus of control may be particularly characteristic of young dependent slot machine gamblers (Griffiths, 1989). A further manifestation of this bias in the present research was the tendency among the dependent subjects to overestimate the returns from a fixed E5 stake. While dependent and nondependent gamblers did not differ in terms of the amount actually recouped, the dependent gamblers predicted far greater success.

Second, while dependent and nondependent slot machine gamblers did not differ in terms of extraversion or neuroticism, differences appeared on the psychoticism scale. Dependent slot machine gamblers recorded scores that were higher than both nondependent gamblers and age-appropriate norms. Eysenck and Eysenck (1 975) provided the following picture of the high psychoticism scorer.

... solitary, not caring for people; he is often troublesome, not fitting in anywhere. He may be cruel and


inhumane, lacking in feeling and empathy, and altogether insensitive. He is hostile to others, even his own kith and kin, and aggressive even to loved ones. He has a liking for odd and unusual things, and a disregard for danger; he likes to make fools of other people and to upset them (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975, p. 11).

In the case of young people, Eysenck and Eysenck state:

We obtain a fairly congruent picture of an odd, isolated, troublesome child; glacial and lacking in human feelings for his fellow beings and for animals, aggressive and hostile, even to near and dear ones. Such children try to make up for lack of feeling by indulging in sensation- seeking “arousal jags” without thinking of the dangers involved. Socialization is a concept which is relatively alien to both adults and children; empathy, feelings of guilt and sensitivity to other people are notions which are strange and unfamiliar to them (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975, p.11).

High psychoticism scores have also been found in older pathological gamblers (Blaszczynski, Buhrich, & McConaghy, 1985), and some of the constituent characteristics described by Eysenck and Eysenck (1 975) emerge from studies which have administered other instruments of personality assessment. For example, Bolen, Caldwell, and Boyd (1975) and Lowenfeld (1 979) presented evidence that pathological gamblers scored highly on the psychopathic deviate subscale ,of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. High scores on this subscale are deemed to reflect an inability to form and sustain interpersonal relationships, impulsivity, and sensation- seeking.

While the results from studies that have administered Zuckerman’s (1 979) sensation-seeking scale have yielded equivocal results (e.g., Anderson & Brown, 1984; Dickerson, Hinchy, & Fabre, 1987), sensation-seeking, as Brown (1986) pointed out, should perhaps best be regarded in the context of prevailing levels of stimulation. The evidence from the subjects’ interview responses in Study 1 indicates that dependent young slot machine gamblers, apart from their gambling, perceive their lives as being low in stimulation. Accordingly, to the extent that sensation-seeking is implicated in gambling, it is perhaps less as a general trait, but more as a response to conventional low levels of stimulation and arousal.


A number of theorists have proposed an important role for arousal in this context. Dickerson (1984), for example, added arousal, as a reinforcer on a fixed interval schedule, to the more traditionally advocated variable financial schedule, to explain what sustained pathological gambling. This view has been echoed by others (Anderson & Brown, 1984; Blaszczynski, Wilson, & McConaghy, 1986). Early laboratory investigations of heart rate as an index of arousal suggested that gambling was not particularly provocative (Rule & Fischer, 1970; Rule, Nutler, & Fischer, 1974). However, the ecological validity of these studies has been challenged (Carroll & Huxley, in press). Tellingly, Anderson and Brown (1984) found only modest increases in heart rate among students and regular gamblers in the context of a laboratory casino. For regular gamblers in a real casino, though, substantial increases in heart rate accompa- nied gambling. With regard to slot machines, our current results are very much in line with those reported earlier by Leary and Dickerson (1985); they, too reported reliable increases in cardiovascular activity during slot machine play. However, the present data suggest that it might be conventional levels of arousal which discriminate between the dependent and nondependent gambler, and not the magnitude of the increase provoked by gambling. This is a matter that warrants further exploration, particularly in the light of recent evidence that pathological gamblers, along with individuals manifesting other behav- ioral disorders characterized by poor impulse control, may display a serotonin deficit. Moreno, Saiz-Ruiz, and Lopez-Ibor (1 991) using a serotonergic probe reported that pathological gamblers registered hypoactivity of the serotonin system relative to matched control subjects.

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Documents

Cognitive, Dispositional, and Psychophysiological Correlates of Dependent Slot Machine Gambling in Young People