Outline and Evaluate the Cognitive Approach to Gambling Addiction?

Outline and evaluate the cognitive approach to gambling addiction? (4+6 marks)

The cognitive approach focus on the way we process information it blames ‘faulty thinking’ as a cause of compulsive gambling. The cognitive approach to Psychology assumes that all behaviour is the result of thought processes. Abnormal behaviour therefore, such as gambling addiction, happens when faulty thinking enters this process, therefore creating an irrational consequence, or behaviour. An example of this faulty thinking ins a gambler is when they thinking it likely that they might will win the next time round, therefore increasing the likelihood that they will gamble again. It is these faulty thoughts processes, which lead to addictive behaviour. For example regular gamblers have the irrational beliefs that the odds are not stacked against them and tend to over-estimate the extent to which their behaviour can affect outcomes.

According to the rational choice theory, a cognitive theory of addiction, it suggests that cognition plays an important role in the initiation of problem gambling. It suggests that addicts are rational consumers who look ahead and behave in a way that is likely to maximise the preferences they hold. Although an exception to this rule appears to be gambling as the study by Griffiths offers an explanation for this based on irrational thought that distorts the reasoning of addictive gamblers, as he found that regular gamblers were more skillful that they actually were and were more likely to make irrational verbalisations during play, also they explained their losses by seeing ‘near misses’ as ‘near wins’ i.e. they weren’t constantly losing but constantly ‘nearly winning’ something that justified their continuation but also illustrate their irrational belief supporting the cognitive approach.

However other studies (Dickerson Baron) have concluded that irrational thinking is probably more a reflection of demand characteristics than a rational underlying behaviour, as a lot of what people say in gambling situations may only result from the difficulty in trying to come up with rational, meaningful statements in chance- determined situations. Therefore it is hard to establish the cause and effect.

Also one important limitation of Griffiths study is that contextual factors seem to play a role in cognitive research. As Griffiths found that regular gamblers had greater difficulty than occasional players in verbalizing their thoughts while they were gambling. While regular gamblers seemed capable of gambling without attending to what they were doing suggesting that cognitive processes did not play a major role in the maintenance of their gambling behaviour or that the original justifications or rationales for behaviour were less accessible. In either case Griffiths observations suggested that temporal factors (namely how long a person