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Cognitive Characteristics of Strategic and Non-strategic Gamblers

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Abstract

Participation in strategic and non-strategic games is mostly explained in the literature by gender: men gamble on strategic games, while women gamble on non-strategic games. However, little is known about the underlying cognitive factors that could also distinguish strategic and non-strategic gamblers. We suggest that cognitive style and need for cognition also explain participation in gambling subtypes. From a dual-process perspective, cognitive style is the tendency to reject or accept the fast, automatic answer that comes immediately in response to a problem. Individuals that preferentially reject the automatic response use an analytic style, which suggest processing information in a slow way, with deep treatment. The intuitive style supposes a reliance on fast, automatic answers. The need for cognition provides a motivation to engage in effortful activities. One hundred and forty-nine gamblers (53 strategic and 96 non-strategic) answered the Cognitive Reflection Test, Need For Cognition Scale, and socio-demographic questions. A logistic regression was conducted to evaluate the influence of gender, cognitive style and need for cognition on participation in strategic and non-strategic games. Our results show that a model with both gender and cognitive variables is more accurate than a model with gender alone. Analytic (vs. intuitive) style, high (vs. low) need for cognition and being male (vs. female) are characteristics of strategic gamblers (vs. non-strategic gamblers). This study highlights the importance of considering the cognitive characteristics of strategic and non-strategic gamblers in order to develop preventive campaigns and treatments that fit the best profiles for gamblers.

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Funding

AM received a grant from the French Interdepartmental Mission for the Fight against Addictive Behaviors (MILDECA) and the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CLLE, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UT2J, 5, allées Antonio Machado, 31058, Toulouse Cedex 9, France

    Aurélie Mouneyrac, Céline Lemercier & Valérie Le Floch

  2. CHU Nantes, Addictology and Psychiatry Department, Federative Institute of Behavioral Addictions, Nantes, France

    Gaëlle Challet-Bouju

  3. University of Nantes, University of Tours, UMR INSERM 1246 SHERE, Nantes, France

    Gaëlle Challet-Bouju

  4. Laboratoire OCTOGONE, Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France

    Axelle Moreau

  5. Université Laval, Quebec, Canada

    Christian Jacques & Isabelle Giroux

Authors
  1. Aurélie Mouneyrac
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  2. Céline Lemercier
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  3. Valérie Le Floch
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  4. Gaëlle Challet-Bouju
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  5. Axelle Moreau
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  6. Christian Jacques
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  7. Isabelle Giroux
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Correspondence to Aurélie Mouneyrac.

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Conflict of interest

VLF received funding from the “Jeu et Sociétés” group (Universities Paris Descartes, Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense and Paris 13-SPC and the gambling industry operator FDJ) for other studies. GCB received several grants to support research programs: French Public Health Research Institute (IReSP) and its partners (call for tenders “Primary Prevention 2013”), French National Institution for Prevention and Health Education (INPES, research subvention), French Health Ministry (PHRC 2012–12-020-0177), University Hospital of Nantes (AOI 2013) and “Jeu et Sociétés” group (2015–2016). Those grants were part of other research contracts and had no influence on the present work. GCB also declares that the Federative Institute of Behavioral Addictions has received funding from the University Hospital of Nantes and gambling industry operators (FDJ and PMU). Scientific independence towards gambling industry operators is warranted. A. Moreau received funding from gambling industry operator Paris Mutuel Urbain (PMU). CJ received a scholarship from the Groupe de recherche sur l’intervention et les fondements en jeu (GRIF-Jeu). IG was financed for other studies on gambling by Fonds de recherche du Québec—Société et culture and received an infrastructure grant for GRIF-Jeu by Fonds de recherche du Québec—Société et culture. All authors declare that there was no conflict of interest in conducting this study.

Role of Funding Sources

Sponsors had no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The present study was conducted when there was no Ethics Committee in the University of Toulouse to examine non-interventional studies (created in September 2016). To insure the respect of ethical principles, we then referred to the code of conducts edicted by the French Psychological Society (SFP—http://www.sfpsy.org/). Even not the best, the solution we adopted appeared to be the most appropriate in the context of the experiment. The recently created Ethics Committee does not examine the already conducted studies.

Informed Consent

All participants were informed of the confidentiality and the anonymity of their responses, and gave their free and informed consent.

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Mouneyrac, A., Lemercier, C., Le Floch, V. et al. Cognitive Characteristics of Strategic and Non-strategic Gamblers. J Gambl Stud 34, 199–208 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-017-9710-6

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