Abstract
Probability discounting, a subset of behavioral economic research, has a rich history of investigating choice behavior, especially as it pertains to risky decision making. Gambling involves both choice behavior and risky decision making which makes it an ideal behavior to investigate with discounting tasks. With proximity to a casino being one of the biggest risk factors, studies into the American Indian population have been a neglected population of study. Using outcome measures from a pre-scan probability discounting task, the current study equated the scan task to evaluate behavioral and neurobiological differences in gamblers vs. non-gamblers. Gamblers showed differences in behavioral tasks (lower discounting rates) but not in patterns of neural activation.
Highlights
In the United States, more than 80% of adults engage in some form of gambling each year (Barnes et al, 2017)
In the past year, 76.9% of white Americans engaged in gambling, whereas 80.1% of American Indians (AI) gambled (Barnes et al, 2017)
If the participant chose the larger, uncertain reward, the value of the smaller, certain reward increased by 50% of the previous titration value, but if the participant chose the smaller, certain reward, the value of the smaller, certain reward was reduced by 50% of the previous titration value
Summary
In the United States, more than 80% of adults engage in some form of gambling each year (Barnes et al, 2017). This pattern is pervasive amongst American Indians (AI). In the past year, 76.9% of white Americans engaged in gambling, whereas 80.1% of AI gambled (Barnes et al, 2017). The discrepancies become even more pronounced as we consider those that frequently gamble and/or engage in problem gambling. 9.3% of white Americans engaged in frequent gambling, with 1.8% reaching pathological criteria. Gambling availability and types are constantly changing, high percentages of pathological gamblers (PG) engage in traditional casino games (22.5%), electronic gambling machines (18%), and numbers/lotto (5%; Binde et al, 2017)
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