Background: Why do people gamble?
- Incentive to win
- Win back losses
- Attempt to get out of debt
- Hobby
- Addiction (want to win)
- Thrill/excitement
- Heuristics= rules attempting to explain how people make decisions, judgments and solve problems. Limitation: may contain cognitive biases and fundamental attribution error (we place too much emphasis on the characteristics of the ps and not enough on the situation they are in).
- Illusion of control= when gamblers have a higher expectation of winning than is realistic as they think they are in control of the situation (Forgotten it is down to chance).
- Flexible attributions= when gamblers see their successes as being due to their level of skill at gambling and their failures due to external forces (factors that do not include themselves).
1) There will be no difference in the level of skill between regular and non regular gamblers.
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2) Regular fruit machine gamblers would produce more irrational verbalisations when asked to use the talking aloud method.
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3) Regular fruit machine gamblers would describe themselves as more highly skilled fruit machine gamblers and be of the belief that it requires a higher level of skill than non- regular gamblers.
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4) Gamblers in the talking aloud condition would take longer to complete the task than those tested in the non-thinking aloud condition.
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Research method:
IV: Whether the ps were a regular or non-regular gambler
DV: (operationalised)
Sample:
- Quasi- as the ps were already either regular or non-regular gamblers
- Field- carried out at local amusement arcade with the owners full consent
IV: Whether the ps were a regular or non-regular gambler
DV: (operationalised)
- win rate (time)- total no of mins between each win during the playing session
- win rate (plays)- total no of plays between each win during the playing session
- wins- total no of wins during the playing session
- end stake- total no of winnings in no of 10 pence pieces after the playing session was over
- total plays- total no of plays during the playing session
- total time- total time in mins during one playing session
- play rate- total no of plays per min during the playing session
Sample:
- 60 ps in total, consisting of 44 M & 16 F
- Mean age of 23.4 yrs
- Had all played on a fruit machine at least once in their life
- From Plymouth (British)
Procedure:
- Given 30 gambles worth of money to play with (£3).
- Ps told their aim was to stay gambling for a min of 60 gambles (unless they ran out of money before that).
- The ps could either keep their winnings or continue to play with them.
- (Some ps preferred to play on a different machine when asked to play on the fruit machine).
- Ps were RANDOMLY allocated to conditions: TA and NTA equally.
- TA ps were asked to CLEARLY verbalise EVERY thought that passed through their mind while playing, even if they thought they were irrelevant. They were told to use fragmented sentences if necessary, not to worry about using complete sentences, talk as continuously as possible, and not to justify their thoughts.
The TA ps verbalisations were recorded into a portable tape recorder, to be transcribed later. (This technique is used by cognitive psychologists as we cannot directly observe cognition-cant see what the brain is thinking. So we have to infer cognitive processes on self-report of ps saying what their thoughts were). - The DVs to see if there were any differences between regular and non-regular gamblers were measured by observation.
- A SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW (look at Psych Invest.>Type of data>Self report>Interviews) was conducted after the ps had finished playing on the fruit machine about:
- Ps opinion about the skill level involved in fruit machine gambling.
- Ps own judgement on their own skill level.
of Hypothesis 1)
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of Hypothesis 2)
1) Personification of fruit machine (machine chews tokens) 7.54 % 1.14 % 2) Explaining away losses ('I lost there as I wasn't 3.12 % 0.14 % concentrating') 3) Talking to the fruit machine ('come on, aren't you going 2.64 % 0.90 % to pay out for me?') 4) Swearing at the fruit machine (You b*****d) 0.60 % 0.08 % TOTAL % of irrational verbalisations 14 % 2.5 % |
of Hypothesis 3)
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of Hypothesis 4)
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Conclusions:
Evaluation:
Research Method: (Quasi/Field)
+ = As IV naturally occurring, high ecol valid, as will reflect the real lives of gamblers and non-gamblers as they are behaving naturally.
- = Hard to control extraneous variables and no manipulation of the IV so hard to infer C & E.
- = Hard to replicate again exactly.
Sample:
+ = 60 ps is a largish sample, so it will be representative of the target population.
- = Ethnocentric- British sample.
Reliability:
+ = As a lot of data is quant, it is likely to be consistent and easy to compare.
- = Qual data is unlikely to give consistent results.
Validity:
- = Low validity as it is possible that extraneous variables affected the results.
- = DC's may result in the self-report data as the ps may have falsified their results in the TA condition.
Type of data:
+ = Lot of quant data, so easily replicable and comparable with other ps and conditions.
+ = Qual data of the responses of the ps in the TA condition is meaningful and detailed. For e.g the qual data highlighted the irrational elements of regular gambler's thought processes, that showed how they thought differently with examples.
- = Qual data is hard to compare, and time consuming.
Usefulness:
+ = Findings can be used to help the rehabilitation of problem gamblers.
Ethical Issues:
+ = Met BPS ethical guidelines: ps not deceived, gave their fully informed consent, not generally negatively affected by the study.
+ = Griffiths intention of the study was to use the findings to help rehabilitate problem gamblers, so this means the study is ethically worthy- good chap! :)
- = Some of the regular gamblers who had their irrational verbaliations may have been embarrassed or disturbed by them. However, in one case this was a wake-up call to a persistent gambler to change his ways, so it could be argued it was a justified ethical issue.
Improvements & Implications:
1) Method:
Conduct a Lab exp in a room at a University...
+ = More CONTROL, so can establish C & E
- = Low Ecol valid as doesn't set place in the natural setting that you would find gambling machines.
2) Sample:
A study was conducted in 5 other countries, (e.g Las Vegas :) , America, China, Jamaica and Australia etc) at a local arcade that has fruit machines. The ps would be randomly allotted into TA and NTA conditions. They were given enough money to play with for 60 gambles. They were told to try to aim to stay playing on the machine for 60 gambles. The verbalisations would be recorded by a researcher who noted down everything the ps said. At the end of all the experiments, the researchers from all the different countries would meet up to compare and analyse the results.
Exam Q & A:
Identify two pieces of quantitative data gathered in this study.
• Total time (in minutes) each participant was at a fruit machine.
• Total number of gambles for each participant.
• The amount of winnings for each participant.
• The result of every gamble.
• The number of irrational verbalisations made by each participant.
• The number of rational verbalisations made by each participant.
Outline one advantage of quantitative data used in this study.
• Numbers allow statistics to be applied and comparisons of participants in different conditions to be made.
• Data is ‘objective’ and more ‘scientific’, more ‘acceptable’.
• Less open to bias and misinterpretation than qualitative data.
- Regular gamblers slightly more skillful.
- Regular gamblers believe they are more skillful than they are.
- Regular gamblers know they will lose but play with money, rather than for money-staying on machine for the longest time is their objective.
- Regular gamblers make more irrational verbalisations demonstrating cognitive bias.
- The study may be USEFUL to help problem gamblers recognise and change their cognitive biases.
Evaluation:
Research Method: (Quasi/Field)
+ = As IV naturally occurring, high ecol valid, as will reflect the real lives of gamblers and non-gamblers as they are behaving naturally.
- = Hard to control extraneous variables and no manipulation of the IV so hard to infer C & E.
- = Hard to replicate again exactly.
Sample:
+ = 60 ps is a largish sample, so it will be representative of the target population.
- = Ethnocentric- British sample.
Reliability:
+ = As a lot of data is quant, it is likely to be consistent and easy to compare.
- = Qual data is unlikely to give consistent results.
Validity:
- = Low validity as it is possible that extraneous variables affected the results.
- = DC's may result in the self-report data as the ps may have falsified their results in the TA condition.
Type of data:
+ = Lot of quant data, so easily replicable and comparable with other ps and conditions.
+ = Qual data of the responses of the ps in the TA condition is meaningful and detailed. For e.g the qual data highlighted the irrational elements of regular gambler's thought processes, that showed how they thought differently with examples.
- = Qual data is hard to compare, and time consuming.
Usefulness:
+ = Findings can be used to help the rehabilitation of problem gamblers.
Ethical Issues:
+ = Met BPS ethical guidelines: ps not deceived, gave their fully informed consent, not generally negatively affected by the study.
+ = Griffiths intention of the study was to use the findings to help rehabilitate problem gamblers, so this means the study is ethically worthy- good chap! :)
- = Some of the regular gamblers who had their irrational verbaliations may have been embarrassed or disturbed by them. However, in one case this was a wake-up call to a persistent gambler to change his ways, so it could be argued it was a justified ethical issue.
Improvements & Implications:
1) Method:
Conduct a Lab exp in a room at a University...
+ = More CONTROL, so can establish C & E
- = Low Ecol valid as doesn't set place in the natural setting that you would find gambling machines.
2) Sample:
A study was conducted in 5 other countries, (e.g Las Vegas :) , America, China, Jamaica and Australia etc) at a local arcade that has fruit machines. The ps would be randomly allotted into TA and NTA conditions. They were given enough money to play with for 60 gambles. They were told to try to aim to stay playing on the machine for 60 gambles. The verbalisations would be recorded by a researcher who noted down everything the ps said. At the end of all the experiments, the researchers from all the different countries would meet up to compare and analyse the results.
- + = No longer ethnocentric, results will be more reliable, will be able to generalise the results to a wider population of the world.
- - = It would be extremely time- consuming and expensive.
Exam Q & A:
Identify two pieces of quantitative data gathered in this study.
• Total time (in minutes) each participant was at a fruit machine.
• Total number of gambles for each participant.
• The amount of winnings for each participant.
• The result of every gamble.
• The number of irrational verbalisations made by each participant.
• The number of rational verbalisations made by each participant.
Outline one advantage of quantitative data used in this study.
• Numbers allow statistics to be applied and comparisons of participants in different conditions to be made.
• Data is ‘objective’ and more ‘scientific’, more ‘acceptable’.
• Less open to bias and misinterpretation than qualitative data.