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The Role of Cultural Factors in Differentiating Pathological Gamblers

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Abstract

It is recognised that cultural factors play a role in the onset and continuation of several mental health problems. However, there is a significant lack of empirical studies investigating the relationships between cultural factors and gambling behavior. This study assessed whether the subjective cultures through which subjects interpret and enact their experience of the social environment play a major role in increasing (or decreasing) the probability of pathological gambling. Participants, recruited in three different contexts (public health services for the treatment of addiction, casino, undergraduate course) were subjected to the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) (Lesieur and Blume in Am J Psychiatry 144(9):1184–1188, 1987), in order to identify a group of pathological gamblers—and with the Questionnaire on the Interpretation of the Social Environment (QUISE) (Mossi and Salvatore in Eur J Educ Psychol 4(2):153–169, 2011)—in order to detect their subjective cultures. The study compares pathological group (scoring >5 on SOGS, n = 34) and a healthy control group (scoring <1 on SOGS, n = 35). One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare groups on QUISE scores of subjective culture. Moreover, a logistic regression was applied in order to esteem the capability of the QUISE scores to differentiate between pathological gamblers and control. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that pathological group expresses different subjective cultures compared with no gambler subjects. The theoretical and clinical implications of the results are discussed.

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Notes

  1. For instance, Thaler and Johnson (1990), based on perspective theory (Kaheneman and Tversky 1979), suggest that the manner in which prior outcomes (gain and losses) are coded affect gamblers ‘risky-choice.

  2. Elsewhere, we have proposed a dynamic and semiotic model of meanings, according to which generalized meanings can be conceived as the byproduct of an ongoing dynamics of sensemaking, marked by an affective side (see: Salvatore and Venuleo 2009, 2013).

  3. The idea of oppositional structures of signification is also expressed in the psychoanalytic literature (see, for instance, the good/bad scheme proposed by Klein 1967), in literature on the Semantic Differential technique and within Social Representations Theory, maintaining that representations are grounded on themata (Markova 2003), the latter being generalized meanings having oppositional structure.

  4. Referring to the way different social groups interpret masculinity, Goncalves and Machado (2007) note: “both middle class and working class models of masculinity rely on the control over women and children and on the role of the provider, but, while the former values knowledge, self-control and rationalization, the latter frequently emphasizes physical force and hard labour” (pp. 269–270).

  5. For instance, it can be seen that the idea of gambling promoted by the Italian national lotteries advert is that of a chance to stop working and to solve all kinds of problems, which it would be “unreasonable” to waste. For example, an advert for the “national ticket to luck” of some years ago shows a happy family spending their holiday in a beautiful exotic place with the background comment that suggests: “Stay on holiday as long as you want”. Other adverts say: “Today might be the day. Take the chance” (2004); “Do you like easy wins?” (2004); “Win often, win now” (2005); “Bring out the rich man within you” (2005).

  6. The term subject culture can be found originally in Triandis (1972, 2002). According to the author, the subjective culture includes ideas about how to make the elements of material culture (e.g., how we build a house), how to live properly, and how to behave in relation to objects and people. However, the use we make of the term presents two main specificities. Firstly, whereas for the author the subject culture is a society 's “characteristic way of perceiving its social environment" (Triandis 1972, p. viii, 3), we regard a subjective culture as a way of perceiving the social environment which characterizes an individual or a homogenous groups of individuals. Accordingly, a subjective culture does not correspond to the culture, which may express many subject cultures. Secondly, whereas for Triandis beliefs, norms, values, attitudes, rules and tasks are the elements making up a subjective culture, we regard these elements as the byproduct of the culture, in the sense of the symbolic universe made up of dimensions of sense. Subjective cultures, as systems of meanings, depend on the subjects’ positioning within the dimensions of sense grounding beliefs, norms, values, rules, and so on. .

  7. To give an example, let us consider a group of gamblers sharing the same casino. Every participant produces utterances, body expressions, a way of dressing; the practice occurs in a place full of elements (the kindness of the croupier, the pleasant look of the furniture, ….) which in turn work as further meanings related to the organizational and functional characteristics of the game (the goals, the rules, the roles, the tools and the procedures…) are other sources of meanings. The effect of the combination of these meanings could be an emergence of a global meaning (Salvatore and Venuleo 2009) connoting the intersubjective field as a friendly and reliable context giving an opportunity to people, sharing their loneliness in a hostile and unreliable social environment. For instance, Ocean and Smith (1993) observe that group affiliation, emotional and moral support, self-esteem, social status are likely social rewards within the gambling subculture of casino regulars.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the director of the Department of Pathological Dependence of the Local Health Service of Lecce (Italy), particularly, the director Salvatore Della Bona, who allowed us to collect the data among the users of the service for the treatment of drug abuse, and the psychologists for their precious collaboration.

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  1. Department of History, Society and Human Studies, University of Salento, Via Stampacchia, 45, 73100, Lecce, Italy

    Claudia Venuleo, Sergio Salvatore & Piergiorgio Mossi

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  1. Claudia Venuleo
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  2. Sergio Salvatore
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  3. Piergiorgio Mossi
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Correspondence to Claudia Venuleo.

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Venuleo, C., Salvatore, S. & Mossi, P. The Role of Cultural Factors in Differentiating Pathological Gamblers. J Gambl Stud 31, 1353–1376 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-014-9476-z

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