Exploring the Predictive Value of Gambling Motives, Cognitive Distortions, and Materialism on Problem Gambling Severity in Adolescents and Young Adults.

Gambling motives and cognitive distortions are thought to be associated because both coping and financial motives to gamble appear to be predictors of gambling related cognitive distortions. Therefore, there is an argument to be made that gambling motives, cognitive distortions, and materialism share common attributes and might be related to problem gambling severity. The present paper aims to examine the relationship between these three variables, both in a clinical and community setting, to see if they can predict gambling severity. A sample of 250 participants from the general population and 31 participants from the clinical population was recruited. The results showed that the clinical sample scored higher on gambling severity, cognitive distortions, materialism, and gambling motives. It also showed that low scores in enhancement motives and higher scores in social motives and gambling related cognitions predicted gambling severity in older gamblers, whereas for younger patients, gambling severity was best predicted by higher scores in materialism and coping motives, and lower scores for enhancement and social motives. In the community sample, gambling severity correlated with gambling related cognitive distortions and with gambling motives (except for social and coping motives within the women subsample). These results testify to the importance of materialism, cognitive distortions, and gambling motives as risk factors for problem gambling both in community and clinical samples.

Citation

Ana Estévez, Paula Jauregui, Hibai Lopez-Gonzalez, Laura Macia, Naiara López, Leire Zamora, Jaione Onaindia, Roser Granero, Gemma Mestre-Bach, Trevor Steward, Fernando Fernández-Aranda, Mónica Gómez-Peña, Laura Moragas, Teresa Mena-Moreno, María Lozano-Madrid, Amparo Del Pino-Gutiérrez, Ester Codina, Giulia Testa, Cristina Vintró-Alcaraz, Zaida Agüera, Lucero Munguía, Isabel Baenas, Eduardo Valenciano-Mendoza, Bernat Mora-Maltas, José M Menchón, Susana Jiménez-Murcia. Exploring the Predictive Value of Gambling Motives, Cognitive Distortions, and Materialism on Problem Gambling Severity in Adolescents and Young Adults. Journal of gambling studies. 2021 Jun;37(2):643-661

Mesh Tags

PMID: 32809101

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