Gambling Research Reveals - Issue 2, Volume 10 - December 2010 / January 2011

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g a m b l i n g r e s e a r c h r e v e a l s

T Al rta Ga i g R arcI titut i a c rtiu t U iv r iti Al rta,Calgar , a d L t ridg .It pri ar purp it upp rt a d pr t

r arc i t ga i g a dga li g i t pr vi c . *

our mission

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VoLUme 10 / IssUe 2DeCembeR 2010 / JAnUARy 2011

Understanding reasons behindrisk takingby Trevor Kenney

Sandeep Mishra is an idealist with a realistsbackground.

The PhD candidate in the Department o Psychology at the University o Lethbridge hasa keen understanding o what has led to hiseducational success, and a desire to bettersociety as a result. Hell use his science to do so.

So much o my education is unded by taxpay-ers, so I elt a really strong obligation to choosea topic o study that bene ts taxpayers andmakes society a better place, says Mishra, whois set to de end his PhD thesis in December. Imparticularly interested in gambling, risk takingand crime, but more speci cally, the social andenvironmental actors that increase or decreasethese behaviours.

Studying under the guidance o Dr. MartinLalumire, Mishra has been working on the well-established concept o inequality and its linkto criminal activity. While there is a large bodyo evidence that has linked inequality with anynumber o societys ills, there has never beena causal analysis o the relationshipuntil now.

The empirical research has been done and it hasbeen shown repeatedly that inequality is linkedto crime, but this is research at an aggregate lev-el and does not address causal mechanisms, says Mishra. I decided that a productiveline o research would be inducing inequality in a lab setting. Laboratory experiments,involving random assignment to experimental conditions, o er the only conclusive wayto determine whether a variable has a causal e ect or not. A ter introducing conditionso inequality in this setting, I then asked what happens to their responses to riskybehaviour?

Im particularlyinterested in gambling,risk taking and crime,but more specifcally,the social andenvironmentalactors that increaseor decrease thesebehaviours.


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2010-11 Scholarship andResearch Allowance

Award Recipients

The Institute is pleased toannounce three 2010-11Scholarship and ResearchAllowance Award Recipients:

Terri-Lynn MacKay Ph.D. (Psychology,University of Calgary)

Sandeep Mishra Ph.D.(Psychology, Universityof Lethbridge)

Tanya Mudry Masters(Applied Psychology,University of Calgary)

Additional details regardingtheir gambling-relatedresearch interests are

available from the Instituteweb site.

His ndings could shape public policy oryears to come.

All o the evidence suggests that systemicinequality and competitive disadvantage a-

cilitate risk taking, o which criminal activ-ity is an extreme orm, says Mishra. Iveound that reducing risk taking is possibleby reducing inequality. All o this has enor-mous policy implications.

Mishras study invited students to partici-pate in a series o experiments. One suchexperiment saw pairs o students tasked toanswer a series o questions that tested theirrisk-taking attitudes. Prior to the test, onestudent was given $10 or his e ort, the oth-

er none, under the guise that unding onlyallowed or one party to be compensated.

In almost every instance, the student whohad su ered a perceived inequality choserisky options at a substantially higher level.Further, when students were tasked again toper orm the tests, except on this occasionanother $10 in unding was ound midwaythrough the exercise, thus evening out theimbalance, risk taking behaviour signi -cantly declined.

I something as simple as $10 can infuencerisky behaviour in healthy, well-educated,socially higher class undergrads, then youcan imagine how this mechanism is justcompounded in the real world, says Mishra.What is remarkable is that as soon as thestudents realize that their environment isntactually inequitous, that overall things arepretty air, presumably, they see no reasonto engage in elevated risk taking.

Mishra says his ndings are directly relat-able to public policy, and points to the cur-rent political climate where governmentpolicy in general is built around punitiveaction to deter criminal behaviour.

They are not really investing in root socialissues that acilitate conditions that pro-duce risk taking and crime, says Mishra.Even though it is costlier and you dont seedirect implications, investing in in rastruc-ture and better education or those who are

underserved is a more prudent approach.Helping people help themselves out o inequitous situations is the best thing wecan do to lower crime rates.

Mishra, who is o to the University o Guelph to pursue a post-doctoral ellow-ship, is a Delhi, Ont. native who beganhis post-secondary career at HamiltonsMcMaster University. Excitable and passion-ate, he credits the University o Lethbridgeand Lalumire or allowing him to grow hisresearch port olio.

Martins one o the most generous humanbeings you will ever meet, says Mishra.He consistently puts his graduate students

well-being above his own and hes allowedme to take control and lead my own researchprogram. The acilities Ive had to work withgo well beyond what most grad studentscould dream o , and the eedback he givesme is always excellent and very supportive.

This article originally appeared in the No-vember 2010 issue of The Legend. Permis-sion to republish the article was grantedby University Advancement, University of

Lethbridge.

Representative publications

Mishra, S., Lalumire, M. L., Morgan, M., &Williams, R. J. (in press). An examinationo the relationship between gambling andantisocial behavior. Journal of Gambling

Studies.

Mishra, S., & Lalumire, M. L. (2010).You cant always get what you want:The motivational e ect o need on risk-sensitive decision-making. Journal of Ex-

perimental Social Psychology, 46 , 605-61doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2009.12.009

Mishra, S., Lalumire, M. L., & Williams, RJ. (2010). Gambling as a orm o risk-tak-ing: Individual di erences in personality,risk-accepting attitudes, and behavioralpre erences or risk. Personality and

Individual Differences, 49 , 616-621.doi:10.1016/j.paid.2010.05.032


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ALbeRTA GAmInG ReseARChInsTITUTe boARD o DIReCToRsDr. Nady el-Guebaly, Chair,

University o CalgaryDr. Lesley Brown,

University o Lethbridge

Dr. Douglas West,University o AlbertaDr. Chris Hosgood,

University o LethbridgeMrs. Sheila Murphy,

Public MemberDr. Erin Gibbs Van Brunschot,

University o CalgaryDr. Linda Trimble,

University o Alberta

exeCUTIVe DIReCToRVickii Williams

([email protected])

noDe CooRDInAToRsUniversity o Alberta:

Dr. Garry Smith([email protected])

University o Calgary:Dr. David Hodgins([email protected])

University o Lethbridge:Dr. Robert Williams([email protected])

InsTITUTe LIbRARIAnRhys Stevens

([email protected])

Your comments and queries are welcomeeither by e - mail : [email protected] : 780.492.2856

Trevor Kenney andRhys Stevens Writers

Vickii Williams Editor

Epigrafx Design/Layout

Media queries 780.492.2856

* The Institute is unded by the Albertagovernment through the Alberta LotteryFund.

ISSN 1499-2647AGRI 2010

Published fndings rom the Leisure, Li estyle, Li ecycle Project (LLLP)Since 2005, the Institute- unded Leisure, Li estyle, Li ecycle Project (LLLP) has beenactively collecting data rom ve age cohorts o more than 1800 Albertans. To date, therehave been three waves o data collection as part o this longitudinal study and prepara-

tions or a ourth are being made by research project coordinator Dr. David Casey.Analyses o data rom waves one and two o the study are complete and are being usedto develop manuscripts and con erence presentations reporting on various aspects o the investigations.

The ollowing peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles provide early ndings rom the LLLP:

Smith, G. J., Schopfocher, D. P., el-Guebaly, N., Casey, D. M., Hodgins, D. C., Williams,R. J., & Wood, R. T. (in press). Community attitudes toward legal gambling in Alberta.

International Gambling Studies .Hodgins, D. C., Schopfocher, D. P., el-Guebaly, N., Casey, D. M., Smith, G. J., Williams,

R. J., & Wood, R. T. (2010). The association between childhood maltreatment and

gambling problems in a community sample o adult men and women. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 24 , 548-554. doi:10.1037/a0019946

Lobo, D. S. S., Souza, R. P., Tong, R. P., Casey, D. M., Hodgins, D. C., Smith, G. J.,Williams, R. J., Schopfocher, D. P., Wood, R. T., el-Guebaly, N., & Kennedy, J. L. (2010).Association o unctional variants in the dopamine D2-like receptors with risk orgambling behaviour in healthy Caucasian subjects. Biological Psychology, 85 , 33-37.doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2010.04.008

el-Guebaly, N., Casey, D. M., Hodgins, D. C., Smith, G. J., Williams, R. J., Schopfocher,D. P., & Wood, R. T. (2008). Designing a longitudinal cohort study o gambling inAlberta: Rationale, methods, and challenges. Journal of Gambling Studies, 24 , 479-504.doi:10.1007/s10899-008-9108-6

FROM THE LIBRARYBelanger, Y. D. (Ed.). (2011). First Nations gaming in Canada.

Winnipeg, MB: University o Manitoba Press.

While games o chance have been part o the Aboriginal culturallandscape since be ore European contact, large-scale commercialgaming acilities within First Nations communities are a relativelynew phenomenon in Canada. First Nations Gaming in Canada is therst multidisciplinary study o the role o gaming in indigenous com-munities north o the 49th parallel. Bringing together some o Can-adas leading gambling researchers, the book examines the history

o Aboriginal gaming and its role in indigenous political economy,the rise o large-scale casinos and cybergaming, the socio-ecologicalimpact o problem gambling, and the challenges o labour unionsand nancial management. The authors also call attention to the dearth o socioeconomicimpact studies o gambling in First Nations communities while providing models to addressthis growing issue o concern. NOTE: To be published in February 2011 .

Yale D. Belanger is an associate pro essor in the department o Native American Studies at theUniversity o Lethbridge, and author o Ways of Knowing: An Introduction to Native Studies inCanada and Gambling with the Future: The Evolution of Aboriginal Gaming in Canada .

Documents

Gambling Research Reveals - Issue 2, Volume 10 - December 2010 / January 2011