The role of attention in decision-making under risk in gambling disorder: an eye-tracking study

Hoven, M., Hirmas, A., Engelmann, J. B., 

& van Holst, R. (2022, June 30).

https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/fxd3m

Abstract

Gambling disorder (GD) is a behavioural addiction characterized by impairments in decision-making, favouring risk- and reward-prone choices. One explanatory factor for this behaviour is a deviation in attentional processes, as increasing evidence indicates that GD patients show an attentional bias toward gambling stimuli. However, previous attentional studies have not directly investigated attention during risky decision-making. 25 patients with GD and 27 healthy matched controls (HC) completed a mixed gambles task combined with eye-tracking to investigate attentional biases for potential gains versus losses during decision-making under risk. Results indicate that compared to HC, GD patients gambled more and were less loss averse. GD patients did not show a direct attentional bias towards gains (or relative to losses). Using a recent (neuro)economics model that considers average attention and trial-wise deviations in average attention, we conducted fine-grained exploratory analyses of the attentional data. Results indicate that the average attention in GD patients moderated the effect of gain value on gambling choices, whereas this was not the case for HC. GD patients with high average attention for gains started gambling at less high gain values. A similar trend-level effect was found for losses, where GD patients with high average attention for losses stopped gambling with lower loss values. This study gives more insight into how attentional processes in GD play a role in gambling behaviour, which could have implications for the development of future treatments focusing on attentional training or for the development of interventions that increase the salience of losses.

From the Discussion section

We extend the current literature by investigating the role of attention in risky decision-making using eye-tracking, which has been underexplored in GD thus far. Consistent with previous studies in HCs, subjects’ overall relative attention toward gains decreased in favor of attention toward losses when  loss  values  increased.  We  did not find group differences in attention to either  gains or losses, suggesting no direct attentional biases in GD. However, while HCs increased their attention to gains with higher gain values, patients with GD did not. Moreover, while patients with GD displayed lower loss aversion, they did not show less attention to losses, rather, in both groups, increased trial-by-trial attention to losses resulted in less gambling.

The question arises whether attention modulates the effect of gains and losses on choice behavior differently in GD relative to controls. Our exploratory analyses that differentiated between two different channels of attention indeed indicated that the effect of gain value on gambling choices was modulated by the amount of average attention on gains in GD only. In other words, patients with GD who focused more on gains exhibited a greater gambling propensity at relatively low gain values. Notably, the strength of the effect of gain value on choice only significantly differed at average and high levels of attention to gains between groups, while patients with GD and HCs with relatively low levels of average attention to gains did not differ. Moreover, patients with GD who had relatively more average attention to losses showed a reduction in gambling propensity at relatively lower loss values, but note that this was at trend level.  Since  average  attention  relates  to  goal-directed or top-down attention, this measure likely reflects one’s preferences and beliefs.  Hence,  the  current  results suggest  that  gambling  choices  in  patients  with GD, relative to HCs are more  influenced by their preferences for gains. Future studies are needed to verify if and how top-down attentional processes affect decision-making in GD.

The research is here.

Editor's note: Apparently, GD focusing primarily on gains continue to gamble.  GD and HC who focus on losses are more likely to stop.  Therefore, psychologists treating people with impulse control difficulties may want to help patient's focus on potential losses/harm, as opposed to imagined gains.

Not lost in translation: Successfully replicating Prospect Theory in 19 countries

Kai Ruggeri and others
OSF Preprints
Originally posted August 21, 2019

Abstract

Kahneman and Tversky’s 1979 article on Prospect Theory is one of the most influential papers across all of the behavioural sciences. The study tested a series of binary financial (risky) choices, ultimately concluding that judgments formed under uncertainty deviate significantly from those presumed by expected utility theory, which was the prevailing theoretical construct at the time. In the forty years since publication, this study has had a remarkable impact on science, policy, and other real-world applications. At the same time, a number of critiques have been raised about its conclusions and subsequent constructs that were founded on it, such as loss aversion. In an era where such presumed canonical theories have increasingly drawn scrutiny for inability to replicate, we attempted a multinational study of N = 4,099 participants from 19 countries and 13 languages. The same methods and procedures were used as in the original paper, adjusting only currencies to make them relative to current values, and requiring all participants to respond to all items. Overall, we found that results replicated for 94% of the 17 choice items tested. At most, results from the 1979 study were attenuated in our findings, which is most likely due to a more robust sample. Twelve of the 13 theoretical contrasts presented by Kahneman and Tversky also replicated, with a further 89% replication rate of the total contrasts possible when separating by location, up to 100% replication in some countries. We conclude that the principles of Prospect Theory replicate beyond any reasonable thresholds, and provide a number of important insights about replications, attenuation, and implications for the study of human decision-making at population-level.

The research is here.

A Teachable Ethics Scandal

Mitchell Handelsman
Teaching of Psychology

Abstract

In this article, I describe a recent scandal involving collusion between officials at the American Psychological Association (APA) and the U.S. Department of Defense, which appears to have enabled the torture of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The scandal is a relevant, complex, and engaging case that teachers can use in a variety of courses. Details of the scandal exemplify a number of psychological concepts, including obedience, groupthink, terror management theory, group influence, and motivation. The scandal can help students understand several factors that make ethical decision-making difficult, including stress, emotions, and cognitive factors such as loss aversion, anchoring, framing, and ethical fading. I conclude by exploring some parallels between the current torture scandal and the development of APA’s ethics guidelines regarding the use of deception in research.

The article is here.

Disgust as embodied loss aversion

Simone Schnall
European Review Of Social Psychology Vol. 28 , Iss. 1, 2017

ABSTRACT

A quickly expanding literature has examined the link between physical disgust and morality. This article critically integrates the existing evidence and draws the following conclusions: First, there is considerable evidence that experimentally induced disgust and cleanliness influence moral judgment, but moderating variables and attributional processes need to be considered. Second, moral considerations have substantial effects on behavioural concomitants of disgust, such as facial expressions, economic games and food consumption. Third, while disgust involves a conservation concern, it can manifest itself in both liberal and conservative political attitudes. Overall, disgust can be considered to form part of a behavioural loss aversion system aimed at protecting valuable resources, including the integrity of one’s body. Recommendations are offered to investigate the role of disgust more rigorously in order to fully capture its role in moral life.

The article is here.

Anomalies: The Endowment Effect, Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias

Daniel Kahneman, Jack L. Knetsch, Richard H. Thaler
The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5(1), pp. 193-206, Winter 1991

A wine-loving economist we know purchased some nice Bordeaux wines years ago at low prices. The wines have greatly appreciated in value, so that a bottle that cost only $10 when purchased would now fetch $200 at auction. This economist now drinks some of this wine occasionally, but would neither be willing to sell the wine at the auction price nor buy an additional bottle at that price. Thaler (1980) called this pattern—the fact that people often demand much more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it—the endowment effect. The example also illustrates what Samuelson and Zeckhauser (1988) call a status quo bias, a preference for the current state that biases the economist against both buying and selling his wine. These anomalies are a manifestation of an asymmetry of value that Kahneman and Tversky (1984) call loss aversion—the disutility of giving up an object is greater that the utility associated with acquiring it. This column documents the evidence supporting endowment effects and status quo biases, and discusses their relation to loss aversion.

The entire article is here.

Philosophers’ Biased Judgments Persist Despite Training, Expertise and Reflection

By Eric Schwitzgebel and Fiery Cushman
In press

Abstract

We examined the effects of framing and order of presentation on professional philosophers’
judgments about a moral puzzle case (the “trolley problem”) and a version of the Tversky &
Kahneman “Asian disease” scenario. Professional philosophers exhibited substantial framing
effects and order effects, and were no less subject to such effects than was a comparison group of
non-philosopher academic participants. Framing and order effects were not reduced by a forced
delay during which participants were encouraged to consider “different variants of the scenario
or different ways of describing the case”. Nor were framing and order effects lower among
participants reporting familiarity with the trolley problem or with loss-aversion framing effects,
nor among those reporting having had a stable opinion on the issues before participating the
experiment, nor among those reporting expertise on the very issues in question. Thus, for these
scenario types, neither framing effects nor order effects appear to be reduced even by high levels
of academic expertise.

The entire article is here.