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The Personality Context of Adolescent Gambling: Better Explained by the Big Five or Sensation-Seeking?

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Abstract

Adolescent gambling is a serious and increasingly common problem. Studies in adults have found several within- and between-person associations between personality and gambling. We aim to extend these findings to a sample of adolescents selected for gambling behavior. Participants consisted of a racially diverse sample of adolescents between the ages of 13 and 17 (n = 227). We collected self-reported information on normal-range personality traits, sensation-seeking, and gambling frequency, severity, and motives in an online survey. Normal-range personality traits were not correlated with gambling, but trait sensation-seeking was positively correlated with gambling. Latent class analyses showed that classes of adolescent gamblers may be differentiated based on personality trait patterns, although these classes were not differentiated on gambling severity or frequency. Finally, in hierarchical analyses, six homogenous components representing the five normal-range personality traits and sensation-seeking accounted for maximum variance in gambling outcomes. In this model, components representing sensation-seeking and conscientiousness were the only significant unique predictors of gambling-related outcomes. Our findings suggest that subgroups of adolescent gamblers may be distinguished based on personality trait patterns before the emergence of problematic gambling. In other words, personality differences may reflect an early predisposition to divergent pathways to adolescent gambling. Our findings concur with previous work and underscore the importance of sensation-seeking as a particularly important risk factor of initiation and escalation of adolescent gambling.

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Notes

  1. During screening, potential participants were asked about the following gaming/gambling behaviors: Used poker applications on social networking sites such as Facebook or Bebo?; Played games for virtual money on virtual pet sites such as Fluffy Friends, NeoPets, FooMojo, or FooPets, or Webkinz!?; Played “free-play”/"demo”/"money-free” games on Internet gambling sites?; Placed bets on a videogame or arcade game?; Placed bets on the Internet, e.g., sports bets (Fantasy Football, March Madness, Super Bowl squares,etc.)?; Bought a lottery ticket/scratch card?; Played dice/craps for money or something of value?; Gambled on a slot or poker machine?; Placed bets with a bookie?

  2. 3 parcels for 9 items of the GPSS from the CAGI; 6 parcels for 19 frequency items from the CAGI; 3 parcels for 9 items of the DSM-IV-MR-J

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Swift Hall, 2029 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA

    Kathleen W. Reardon, Meggie Wang & Jennifer L. Tackett

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Houston, 3695 Cullen Blvd, Rm 126, Houston, TX, 77204, USA

    Clayton Neighbors

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  1. Kathleen W. Reardon
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  2. Meggie Wang
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  3. Clayton Neighbors
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  4. Jennifer L. Tackett
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Contributions

KR participated in study design and coordination, data collection, data analyses and interpretation, and drafting the manuscript. MW participated in data analyses and interpretation and drafting the manuscript. JT conceived of the study, participated in its design and coordination, and provided substantive feedback and edits on the drafted manuscript. CN participated in study design and provided substantive feedback and edits on the drafted manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Kathleen W. Reardon.

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Conflicts of Interest

Kathleen W Reardon, Meggie Wang, Clayton Neighbors and Jennifer L. Tackett certify that they have no known conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise, regarding the information contained within this publication. This work was supported by the National Center for Responsible Gaming (NCRG) [Early Stage Investigator Grant, 2012–2014].

Human Participants and/or Animals

This research involved Human Participants. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.”

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Appendices

Appendix

Full description of the content of the model resulting from the “bass-ackwards” extraction of a hierarchy

Level 2. At Level 2, the first component was defined by high loadings of items from the Extraversion and Openness to Experience Scales, as well as some Sensation-Seeking items. This component was labeled Approach. The second component was defined by high loadings of items from Neuroticism, as well as Agreeableness (reversed) and Conscientiousness (reversed). This component was labeled Avoidance.

Level 3. At Level 3, Approach split into a factor primarily defined by high loadings of items from Extraversion and Sensation-Seeking, labeled Reward, and a factor primarily defined by high loadings of items from Agreeableness, Openness to Experience, and Conscientiousness, labeled Adaptability. The level 2 component Avoidance was largely replicated at level 3, although primarily defined only by items from Neuroticism and Conscientiousness (reversed).

Level 4. At Level 4, Avoidance was again largely replicated, defined by items from Neuroticism and Conscientiousness (reversed), with some items from Agreeableness (reversed). The second component at this level replicates Adaptability from Level 3, with items from Agreeableness, Openness to Experience, and some from Conscientiousness. The third component at this level is defined almost entirely by Sensation-Seeking items, with one from Neuroticism (reversed). The fourth component is defined by Extraversion, with one item from Openness to Experience.

Level 5. At level 5, components emerge which are defined entirely by Sensation-Seeking, Extraversion, Openness to Experience. One of the remaining two components is a mixture of Neuroticism with some Conscientiousness (reversed), and the final component is almost entirely Agreeableness with two items from Conscientiousness and one from Openness to Experience.

Level 6. At Level 6, components emerge which are almost entirely homogenous (Neuroticism, Openness to Experience, Sensation-Seeking, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness). There are only two exceptions: One item from Agreeableness (reversed) loads on the Neuroticism component, and one item from Conscientiousness loads on the Agreeableness component.

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Reardon, K.W., Wang, M., Neighbors, C. et al. The Personality Context of Adolescent Gambling: Better Explained by the Big Five or Sensation-Seeking?. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 41, 69–80 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-018-9690-6

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