The Relationship Between Risk-Taking and Emotional Regulation in Gambling

Lack of emotion regulation has been linked with addictions like gambling. People may use gambling as an outlet to escape negative feelings or increase excitement, often using it as an escape route or to calm the nerves.

Emotion-focused therapy can assist individuals in transitioning away from maladaptive coping strategies towards more effective ones, but determining what emotions are being regulated is paramount to its effectiveness. To this end, this study explored the relationship between risk taking and emotional regulation among a clinical sample of gamblers.

Risk-taking

Many factors influence risk-taking behavior in gambling, including sensation-seeking, cognitive biases and emotional factors such as excitement or anxiety. Researchers have discovered that certain personality traits also predict risk-taking such as narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism and perfectionism; these can predict risk-taking behavior such as pathological gambling and eating large quantities of food for pleasure (Koritzky et al. 2018).

Recently, we conducted an experiment to investigate the relationship between emotion regulation and risk-taking by having participants complete both an emotion regulation and risky decision-making task. They were required to utilize strategies such as reappraisal or suppression when it came time to selecting between two options for investments.

People who had difficulty controlling their emotions using reappraisal or suppression were more likely to engage in problematic online gaming, while those who excelled at emotion regulation tasks were significantly less likely to gamble online. This suggests that an inability to self-regulate emotional states may contribute to issues associated with gambling and other addictions.

Emotional regulation

Emotion regulation issues have been associated with an array of addictive behaviors, such as problem gambling. More specifically, people with difficulty managing negative emotions and impulsive tendencies are more likely to engage in risky activities such as gambling as an escape mechanism from negative feelings or to increase excitement. People who suppress negative emotions more may also use gambling as an escape or way to escape them through risk-taking behaviors like risk-taking behavior and risk taking behaviors.

This study used a gambling task, consisting of placing a balloon over a box and guessing when it will explode, to test how perception of win or loss influences risk-taking behavior. They discovered that participants who experienced positive affect risked less money even after controlling for overall betting tendencies and propensities.

Researchers determined that self-blame was the main influence on gambling severity and shame both now and over the past two weeks, while suppression mediated this association with coping gambling motives. Their results corroborated with prior studies which have established how maladaptive ER strategies such as suppression or negative refocusing can contribute to gambling disorder severity.

Motivation

Impulsivity is a primary contributor to gambling disorder (GD). It involves an inability to resist temptations that could result in negative consequences, often with accompanying cognitive distortions such as chasing losses or believing a series of losses will eventually lead to success; such distortions often lead to risky bets which lead to serious financial troubles.

Participants completed a survey in mass testing format that included demographic questions and the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS). Additionally, they answered questions related to their gambling motivations.

At least 84% of respondents who gambled for money cited money-related motives as motivation for gambling, including “to make or win money,” “enjoying it,” and “experiencing excitement”. Other commonly mentioned objectives were socializing, passing time, or alleviating boredom; there was no significant relationship between SOGS scores and frequency of these motives; gender differences were also noticed with female respondents endorsing more financial, enjoyment, and excitement motives than their male counterparts.

Addiction

Gambling becomes an issue when one loses control of their emotions and becomes preoccupied with winning, leading them down the path of gambling addiction. Gambling addiction is a serious mental illness affecting people of all ages and genders; it can create problems in families, work environments and relationships as well as depression or other health conditions. Certain individuals may be more predisposed than others – those suffering from anxiety disorders in particular may become addicted because gambling temporarily alleviates symptoms; when that relief wears off again when not stopped gambling occurs again anxiety returns and then begins its cycle all over again.

Gambling addiction is most prevalent among younger adults, particularly men and boys, as well as people who lack self-confidence; such people often feel they don’t deserve happiness, leading them to gamble as a way out of depression.