Attentional biases in low-risk and high-risk gamblers and the moderating effect of daily psychosocial stress

Abstract

Background and aims Psychosocial stress is associated with gambling urges and behavior. A large body of evidence also indicates that individuals who are at risk for disordered gambling are susceptible to attentional biases for gambling-related stimuli. Yet the extent to which psychosocial stress moderates these biases has not been fully investigated. The present study examined the effect of psychosocial stress on attentional biases for gambling stimuli in regular gamblers. Methods The sample was 87 undergraduate students who were categorized according to gambling severity scores (no-risk, low-risk, moderate/high-risk). Participants viewed pairs of gambling-related and neutral images for 8 s while their eye movements were tracked and recorded to measure their attention to the images. Results Each group exhibited a unique pattern of attending to the images over the 8-s presentations. As predicted, the moderate/high-risk group exhibited an attentional bias for gambling-related images that sustained throughout the 8-s presentations. Psychosocial stress was found to moderate attentional biases only for the low-risk group. Conclusions Psychosocial stress appears to influence attention toward gambling images only for low-risk gamblers. Our findings suggest that addressing underlying causes of stress in gamblers may be an effective method for reducing attentional biases to gambling stimuli and gambling problems and behaviors.