Abstract
Gambling Disorder (GD) is characterized by persistent betting even in face of accruing debts and psychosocial hardship. Gambling Disorder behavior has been linked to conditioning, cognitive distortions and superstitious behavior. Previous studies have demonstrated that during response-outcome analytical tests (ROAT), non-gambling individuals are precluded from response extinction when failure feedback is suppressed, and develop superstitious behaviors and illusion of control instead. Gambling can be regarded as a ROAT paradigm in which disordered gamblers (DGs) fail to compute failure feedback; hence they do not perceive the independence between response and outcome. In order to investigate early phenomena on response and outcome processing in DGs, we developed two short ROAT versions, one with a controllable outcome and one with an uncontrollable outcome, both with explicit failure feedback. Twenty DGs and twenty healthy controls were assessed using this novel paradigm. Compared to controls, DGs reported higher distress during the controllable ROAT, less self-confidence in the uncontrollable ROAT, and more random responses and less use of analytical strategies in both tests, evidencing potential deficits in cognitive control. In contrast to previous findings, DGs did not demonstrate more superstitious beliefs, or illusion of control, and were generally more skeptical than controls regarding the controllability of both ROAT versions. Taken together, our findings provide some support for deficits in cognitive control in GD that precede illusion of control and superstitious behaviors.
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Notes
On a post hoc analysis, we reviewed the diagnostic criteria of the participants included in the sample according to the DSM-5 and they all met criteria for Gambling Disorder.
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Acknowledgements
Authors want to thank Iñaki Merino Terron for kindly develo** the computer software for experimental testing, Clarice Gorenstein for her insightful review of the early protocol, Monica Zilberman for kindly reviewing earlier version of this manuscript, and all the staff from the Gambling Outpatient Unit at the Institute of Psychiatry - University of Sao Paulo for their support. This study was partly supported by the National Council on Research, Brazil (CNPq – RB).
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Berg, R., Kim, H.S., Hodgins, D.C. et al. Uncovering Underlying Processes Before Illusion of Control Begins in Gambling Disorder: A Pilot Study. J Gambl Stud 36, 829–849 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-020-09947-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-020-09947-0