OVERCONFIDENCE IN GAMBLING: HOW WELL DO YOU THINK YOU WENT?
-
1
Southern Cross University, Psychology, School of Health and Human Sciences, Australia
Aims: Gambling pathology has various explanations. The current study is based on the cognitive model of gambling to investigate whether heavy gamblers are overconfident, by replicating and extending a study by Erceg and Galic (2014). Additionally, this study hypothesises that overconfidence predicts the extent to which gamblers chase their losses. This hypothesis has not been tested previously.
Methods: A sample of 151 participants completed an online questionnaire. The questionnaire involved predicting the winner of 8 matches from a round of an Australian Rugby League competition. Participants also indicated their confidence in their predictions. A measure of overconfidence was derived from the overall accuracy of the predictions and the confidence rating for each match. Participants completed the Consumption Screen for Problem Gambling, and were categorised into non, recreational and heavy gamblers. There were five chasing behaviour items measured on a 5-point Likert scale, adapted from the Gambling Attitudes and Beliefs Survey.
Results: A One-way ANOVA with a Welch correction showed a significant effect of gambling category on overconfidence, F (2, 87) = 2.56, p = .023, η² = .03. Follow-up tests using planned contrasts revealed that heavy gamblers were more overconfident than non and recreational gamblers combined (p = .006). A Simple Linear Regression showed that overconfidence significantly predicted chasing behavior, R² = .059, F (1,149) = 9.33, p = .003, Β = .041. This demonstrates that overconfident gamblers were more likely to report chasing behaviours than less confident gamblers.
Conclusion: These findings further support the cognitive model of problem gambling by demonstrating that overconfidence is inflated in participants who report frequent gambling, and who chase their losses with further betting.
Keywords:
Gambling,
Overconfidence,
chasing,
problem gambling,
cognitive
Conference:
Southern Cross University 14th Annual Honours Psychology Research Conference, Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, Australia, 5 Oct - 6 Oct, 2017.
Presentation Type:
Research
Topic:
Psychology
Citation:
Abdula
D,
Bowling
A and
Grant
L
(2017). OVERCONFIDENCE IN GAMBLING: HOW WELL DO YOU THINK YOU WENT?.
Front. Psychol.
Conference Abstract:
Southern Cross University 14th Annual Honours Psychology Research Conference.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2017.72.00052
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
29 Sep 2017;
Published Online:
11 Dec 2017.
*
Correspondence:
Ms. Dedar Abdula, Southern Cross University, Psychology, School of Health and Human Sciences, Lismore, 2450, Australia, d.abdula.10@student.scu.edu.au