David Moore

Introduction to Psychology

Roger Watts

January 31, 2020

Research Paper 1

The original question I was attempting to answer is, “Are there psychological methods to

deter gambling in students?” It connects to various aspects of psychology and game theory

because in most casinos, where a majority of gambling is held, there is very little room for

confounding variables. Additionally, there are many opportunities to examine the completionism

effect, as well as the effects of dopamine release. There have been various theories concerning

ways to reduce the addictive nature of gambling.

The two articles found using the keywords “gambling” and “student” in ClicSearch

compared several gambling-reducing methods, namely PNF (personalized normative feedback)

and intrapersonal guilt. These two articles were “Efficacy of Personalized Normative Feedback

as a Brief Intervention for College Student Gambling: A Randomized Controlled Trial” and

“Interpersonal Guilt in College Student Pathological Gamblers”. I chose these two since they

both deal with methods of using psychology to reduce gambling, instead of the majority of

papers, which dealt with the reasoning behind gamblers’ behavior. “Intrapersonal Guilt…” was

written by four Ph.D’s and published by The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse in

2013, and “Efficacy of PNF…” was written by college students from University of Houston,

Yale University, and Lamar University and published by the Journal of Consulting and Clinical
Psychology in 2015. These are reputable sources, as evidenced by these articles being published

by Informa Healthcare and the American Psychological Association, respectively.

These articles answer my questions more than adequately concerning my initial inquiry.

PNF is a method that removes one of the primary addictive properties of gambling: the

perceived-actual discrepancy. This is a psychological phenomenon in which, to avoid facing the

facts, the person in question thinks that they are losing much less money than they actually are.

This is counterbalanced by constantly reminding the affected individual with their actual losses

while in the midst of gambling, which proved an effective deterrent as shown in the data

gathered by the psychologists. However, this was not shown as a permament solution, as after

the six-month follow up, most participants had returned to their habits. This shows that PNF

would require constant surveillance to be effective.

The intrapersonal guilt program, in contrast, seeks to create an environment in which

gambling and other such behaviors are highly discouraged. Students selected for pathological

gambling were initially given questionarres concerning their connections to their family to see if

there was a link between guilt between persons and psychopathology, which oftentimes leads to

gambling or substance abuse. People singled out for pathological gambling were randomly

paired with a non-gambler. They were then told to continue gambling while with their partner.

After the study, which lasted almost a year, only 7.3% of participants continued to gamble

pathologically.

Both of these are perfectly acceptable methods for reducing gambling and teaching risk

versus reward methods of thinking. These studies were randomly sampled, with the data strongly

supporting a correlation between the tests and reduction in gambling. In conclusion, there are
several ways to end the feedback loops that continue gambling addictions, or any addiction for

that matter. The problem is, most aren’t aware they have such a problem due to the brain’s

tendency to downplay negatives and upscale positives or due to peer pressure. Once this is taken

away, then you can start off on your journey to recovery.

Bibliography

1: Locke, Geoffrey W et al. “Interpersonal guilt in college student pathological gamblers.” The American
journal of drug and alcohol abuse vol. 39,1 (2013): 28-32. doi:10.3109/00952990.2012.694520

2: Neighbors, Clayton et al. “Efficacy of personalized normative feedback as a brief intervention for

college student gambling: a randomized controlled trial.” Journal of consulting and clinical psychology vol.

83,3 (2015): 500-11. doi:10.1037/a0039125