Abstract
In the current research, we examined whether the known link between relative deprivation and disordered gambling (via delay discounting; i.e., preferences for immediate smaller rewards relative to delayed larger rewards) is moderated by the extent to which gamblers have a financially focused self-concept. Specifically, we hypothesized that delay discounting would be a strong predictor of disordered gambling among those who base their self-worth on their financial success. To test this moderated-mediation model, a community sample of gamblers (N = 239) completed measures that assessed relative deprivation, delay discounting, financially focused self-concept, and disordered gambling severity. As predicted, people who felt more relative deprivation reported more severe symptoms of disordered gambling and this association was mediated by delay discounting. Importantly, this mediated relationship was moderated by the extent to which participants’ self-concept was focused on financial success. Among participants whose self-concept was high in financial focus, greater delay discounting (stemming from relative deprivation) was a strong predictor of disordered gambling. Among people whose self-concept was low in financial focus, delay discounting (stemming from relative deprivation) was a weak predictor of disordered gambling. Thus, the magnitude of the indirect effect of relative deprivation on disordered gambling severity was larger among people with a more financially focused self-concept—an effect mediated by delay discounting. These findings suggest that targeting gamblers’ financial focus in prevention and treatment interventions may be instrumental in curtailing the development and maintenance of disordered gambling.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alessi, S. M., & Petry, N. M. (2003). Pathological gambling severity is associated with impulsivity in a delay discounting procedure. Behavioural Processes, 64, 345–354. doi:10.1016/S0376-6357(03)00150-5.
Amlung, M., Vedelago, L., Acker, J., Balodis, I. & MacKillop, J. (2016). Steep delay discounting and addictive behavior: A meta-analysis of continuous associations. Addiction, 112, 51–62. doi: 10.1111/add.13535.
Andrade, L. F., Riven, L., & Petry, N. M. (2014). Associations between antisocial personality disorder and sex on discounting rates. The Psychological Record, 64, 639–644. doi:10.1007/s40732-014-0085-0.
Buhrmester, M., Kwang, T., & Gosling, S. D. (2011). Amazon’s Mechanical Turk: A new source of inexpensive, yet high-quality, data? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 3–5. doi:10.1177/1745691610393980.
Callan, M. J., Ellard, J. H., Shead, N. W., & Hodgins, D. C. (2008). Gambling as a search for justice: Examining the role of personal relative deprivation in gambling urges and gambling behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1414–1529. doi:10.1177/0146167208322956.
Callan, M. J., Kim, H., & Mathews, W. J. (2015a). Predicting self-rated mental health and physical health: The contributions of subjective social status and personal relative deprivation. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1–14. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01415.
Callan, M. J., Shead, N. W., & Olson, J. M. (2011). Personal relative deprivation, delay discounting, and gambling. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101, 955–973. doi:10.1037/a0024778.
Callan, M. J., Shead, N. W., & Olson, J. M. (2015b). The relation between personal relative deprivation and the urge to gamble among gamblers is moderated by problem gambling severity: a meta-analysis. Addictive Behavior, 45, 146–149. doi:10.1016/j.addbeh.2015.01.031.
Canale, N., Vieno, A., Griffiths, M. D., Rubaltelli, E., & Santinello, M. (2015). Trait urgency and gambling problems in young people by age: The mediating role of decision-making processes. Addictive Behaviors, 46, 39–44. doi:10.1016/j.addbeh.2015.02.020.
Chandler, J., & Shapiro, D. (2016). Conducting clinical research using crowdsourced convenience samples. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 12, 53–81. doi:10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-021815-093623.
Ciccarelli, M., Malinconico, R., Griffiths, M. D., Nigro, G., & Cosenza, M. (2016). Reward preferences of pathological gamblers under conditions of uncertainty: An experimental study. Journal of Gambling Studies, 32, 1175–1189. doi: 10.1007/s10899-016-9593-y.
Clarke, D., Tse, S., Abbott, M., Townsend, S., Kingi, P., & Manaia, W. (2006). Key indicators of the transition from social to problem gambling. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 4, 247–264. doi:10.1007/s11469-006-9024-x.
Cosenza, M., Griffiths, M. D., Nigro, G., & Ciccarelli, M. (in press). Risk-taking, delay discounting, and time perspective in adolescent gamblers: An experimental study. Journal of Gambling Studies. doi: 10.1007/s10899-016-9623-9.
Crocker, J., & Knight, K. M. (2005). Contingencies of self-worth. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14, 200–203. doi:10.1111/j.0963-7214.2005.00364.x.
Crocker, J., & Park, L. E. (2004). The costly pursuit of self-esteem. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 392–414. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.130.3.392.
Crocker, J., & Wolfe, C. T. (2001). Contingencies of self-worth. Psychological Review, 108, 593–623. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.108.3.59.
Crosby, F. (1976). A model of egoistical relative deprivation. Psychological Review, 83, 85–113. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.83.2.85.
Dixon, M. R., Marley, J., & Jacobs, E. A. (2003). Delay discounting by pathological gamblers. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 36, 449–458. doi:10.1901/jaba.2003.36-449.
Fairburn, C. G. (2008). Cognitive behavior therapy and eating disorders. New York: Guilford Press.
Ferris, J., & Wynne, H. (2001). The Canadian problem gambling index. Ottawa: Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.
Hafer, C. L., & Olson, J. M. (1993). Beliefs in a just world, discontent, and assertive actions by working women. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19, 30–38. doi:10.1177/0146167293191004.
Haisley, E., Mostafa, R., & Loewenstein, G. (2008). Subjective relative income and lottery ticket purchases. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 21, 283–295. doi:10.1002/bdm.588.
Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression based approach. New York: Guilford Press.
Hayes, A. F. (2015). An index and test of linear moderated mediation. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 50, 1–22. doi:10.1080/00273171.2014.962683.
Kibry, K. N., Petry, N. M., & Bickel, W. K. (1999). Heroin addicts have higher discount rates for delayed rewards than non-drug-using controls. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 128, 78–87.
Kim, H. S., & Hodgins, D. C. (2016). Reliability and validity of data obtained from alcohol, cannabis, and gambling populations on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors. doi:10.1037/adb0000219.
MacLaren, V. V., Ellery, M., & Knoll, T. (2015). Personality, gambling motives, and cognitive distortions in electronic gambling machine players. Personality and Individual Differences, 73, 24–28. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2014.09.019.
Markus, H., & Wurf, E. (1987). The dynamic self-concept: A social psychological perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 38, 299–337. doi:10.1146/annurev.ps.38.020187.001503.
Mishra, S., & Carleton, R. N. (2015). Subjective relative deprivation is associated with poorer physical and mental health. Social Science and Medicine, 147, 144–149. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.10.030.
Mishra, S., & Novakowski, D. (2016). Personal relative deprivation and risk: An examination of individual differences in personality, attitudes, and behavioral outcomes. Personality and Individual Differences, 90, 22–26. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2015.10.031.
Myerson, J., Baumann, A. A., & Green, L. (2014). Discounting delayed rewards: (A) theoretical interpretation of the Kirby questionnaire. Behavioural Processes, 107, 99–105. doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2014.07.021.
Olson, J. M., Roese, N. J., Meen, J., & Robertson, D. J. (1995). The preconditions and consequences of relative deprivation: Two field studies. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 25, 944–964. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1995.tb02384.x.
Petry, N. M. (2001). Pathological gamblers, with and without substance use disorders, discount delayed rewards at high rates. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 110, 482–487. doi:10.1037//0021-843X,110.3.482.
Rosenberg, M. (1979). Conceiving the self. Malabar, FL: Robert E. Krieger.
Smith, H. J., Pettigrew, T. F., Pippin, G. M., & Bialosiewicz, S. (2012). Relative deprivation: A theoretical and meta-analytic review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16, 203–232. doi:10.1177/1088868311430825.
Stewart, S. H., & Zack, M. (2008). Development and psychometric evaluation of a three-dimensional gambling motives questionnaire. Addiction, 103, 1110–1117. doi:10.1111/j.1360-0443.2008.02235.x.
Tabri, N., Dupuis, D. R., Kim, H. S., & Wohl, M. J. A. (2015). Economic mobility moderates the effect of relative deprivation on financial gambling motives and disordered gambling. International Gambling Studies, 15, 309–323. doi:10.1080/14459795.2015.1046468.
Tabri, N., Wohl, M. J. A., Eddy, K. T., & Thomas, J. J. (2016). Me myself and money: Having a financially focused self-concept and its consequences for disordered gambling. International Gambling Studies. doi:10.1080/14459795.2016.1252414.
Veale, D. (2002). Over-valued ideas: A conceptual analysis. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 40, 383–400. doi:10.1016/S0005-7967(01)00016-X.
Wheeler, S. C., DeMarree, K. G., & Petty, R. E. (2007). Understanding the role of the self in prime-to-behavior effects: The active-self account. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11, 234–261. doi:10.1177/1088868307302223.
Wilensky, H. L. (1963). The moonlighter: A product of relative deprivation. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 3, 105–124. doi:10.1111/j.1468-232X.1963.tb00812.x.
Zoogah, D. B. (2010). Why should I be left behind? Employees’ relative deprivation and participation in development activities. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 159–173. doi:10.1037/a0018019.
Funding
This research was supported by a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Fonds de Recherche du Québec sur la Société et la Culture < #173207 > to Tabri and an Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre Investigator Support Grant [#3409] to Wohl.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Ethical Approval
All procedures performed in this study 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.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Tabri, N., Will Shead, N. & Wohl, M.J.A. Me, Myself, and Money II: Relative Deprivation Predicts Disordered Gambling Severity via Delay Discounting, Especially Among Gamblers Who Have a Financially Focused Self-Concept. J Gambl Stud 33, 1201–1211 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-017-9673-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-017-9673-7