Predictors of Return Rate Discrimination in Slot Machine Play

The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which accurate estimates of payback percentages and volatility combined with prior learning, enabled players to successfully discriminate between multi-line/multi-credit slot machines that provided differing rates of reinforcement. The aim was to determine if the capacity to discriminate structural characteristics of gaming machines influenced player choices in selecting ‘favourite’ slot machines. Slot machine gambling history, gambling beliefs and knowledge, impulsivity, illusions of control, and problem solving style were assessed in a sample of 48 first year undergraduate psychology students. Participants were subsequently exposed to a choice paradigm where they could freely select to play either of two concurrently presented PC-simulated slot machines programmed to randomly differ in expected player return rates (payback percentage) and win frequency (volatility). Results suggest that prior learning and cognitions (particularly gambler’s fallacy) but not payback, were major contributors to the ability of a player to discriminate volatility between slot machines. Participants displayed a general tendency to discriminate payback, but counter-intuitively placed more bets on the slot machine with lower payback percentage rates.     

Bet Anywhere,Anytime: An Analysis of Internet Sports Bettors’ Responses to Gambling Promotions During Sports Broadcasts by Problem Gambling Severity

Promotions for online sports betting during televised sports broadcasts are regularly viewed by millions of Australians, raising concerns about their impacts on vulnerable groups including at-risk and problem gamblers. This study examined whether responses to these promotions varied with problem gambling severity amongst 455 Australian Internet sports bettors participating in an online survey. Results indicated that young male Internet sports bettors are especially vulnerable to gambling problems, particularly if they hold positive attitudes to gambling sponsors who embed promotions into sports broadcasts and to the promotional techniques they use and this heightens the risk that alluring messages contribute to excessive gambling. As problem gambling severity increased, so too did recognition that these promotions have impacted negatively on their sports betting behaviour. Because a plethora of sports betting brands and promotions are now heavily integrated into sports coverage, social marketing efforts are needed to offset their persuasive appeal and counter the positive attitudes towards them that appear linked to excessive gambling amongst Internet sports bettors.     

Sociological conceptualizations of compassion fatigue: Expanding our understanding

Compassion fatigue has been primarily studied at the micro level and framed as a psychological “personal trouble” that results from one's personality traits, demographic characteristics, or life and work stressors. In addition, compassion fatigue is used to predict other psychological outcomes such as burnout, depersonalization, and stress. This literature on compassion fatigue has been reviewed, in order to illustrate areas where sociologists can contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon. In this article we conceptualize compassion fatigue as a sociological concept and overview the potential ways that sociological approaches can enhance our understanding. We draw on the literatures of emotion work, social exchange theory, and macrolevel sociological theories to facilitate the use of compassion fatigue from a sociological perspective. For example, we use concepts such as social integration and anomie to stimulate thinking about rates of compassion fatigue.     

中国的左撇子

正今天晚上轮到我主持英语角了,一共来了48个学生。和学生聊天的过程中,我提到美国总统奥巴马是左撇子。我说我在谷歌上看到一些文章,有10%的美国人是左撇子,但是来中国3个月了,还没见过一个左撇子呢。我问学生:"中国有左撇子吗?"有4个学生自称左撇子,大约占了在场人数的8%,这个比例和美国的大致相符。左撇子的学生说,他们写字还是用右手的,因为老师鼓励他们这么做。4个学生中有3个吃饭时用右手拿筷子,他们的父母更愿意让他们用右手,而且他们从很小起就养成习惯了。(后来我听说,中国周代有一本讲礼仪的书,规定用右手吃饭是"正统",于是这个传统沿袭了几千年)。     

Joint modeling approach for semicompeting risks data with missing nonterminal event status

Semicompeting risks data, where a subject may experience sequential non-terminal and terminal events, and the terminal event may censor the non-terminal event but not vice versa, are widely available in many biomedical studies. We consider the situation when a proportion of subjects’ non-terminal events is missing, such that the observed data become a mixture of “true” semicompeting risks data and partially observed terminal event only data. An illness–death multistate model with proportional hazards assumptions is proposed to study the relationship between non-terminal and terminal events, and provide covariate-specific global and local association measures. Maximum likelihood estimation based on semiparametric regression analysis is used for statistical inference, and asymptotic properties of proposed estimators are studied using empirical process and martingale arguments. We illustrate the proposed method with simulation studies and data analysis of a follicular cell lymphoma study.     

A self-consistency approach to multinomial logit model with random effects

The computation in the multinomial logit mixed effects model is costly especially when the response variable has a large number of categories, since it involves high-dimensional integration and maximization. Tsodikov and Chefo (2008) developed a stable MLE approach to problems with independent observations, based on generalized self-consistency and quasi-EM algorithm developed in Tsodikov (2003). In this paper, we apply the idea to clustered multinomial response to simplify the maximization step. The method transforms the complex multinomial likelihood to Poisson-type likelihood and hence allows for the estimates to be obtained iteratively solving a set of independent low-dimensional problems. The methodology is applied to real data and studied by simulations. While maximization is simplified, numerical integration remains the dominant challenge to computational efficiency.     

Withdrawal and Tolerance Phenomenon in Problem Gambling

The phenomenological similarities between gambling and substance dependence have led to the conceptualization of pathological gambling as an addictive disorder. Tolerance and withdrawal are important features of both disorders, suggesting commonalities in the neurobiological processes associated with neuroadaptational underpinnings. However, there are few empirical studies supporting the presence of tolerance and withdrawal reported in the gambling literature. Moreover, there are no studies comparing the equivalence of tolerance and withdrawal between gambling and alcohol dependence. This study compared tolerance and withdrawal features in samples of gamblers, alcoholics and gamblers who also met criteria for alcohol dependence. In contrast to the addiction model, findings indicate that, while a majority of participants increased bet size, the motivation to do so was not for excitement or to maintain arousal levels as indicated by the DSM-IV-TR but because of cognitive factors related to winning. Results supported the notion that pathological gamblers experienced similar levels of withdrawal symptom severity as alcohol-dependent participants. Further research is needed to evaluate whether those symptoms result from the inability to gamble or from the loss of an avoidant stress coping strategy.     

Evaluating the outcomes of intensive critical thinking instruction for social work students

Social workers require critical thinking skills to analyse situations which present themselves in the course of professional work and in making decisions about the most appropriate forms of social work intervention. The 4-year Bachelor of Social Work degree at the University of Newcastle, Australia, introduced an intensive instructional unit on critical thinking at the beginning of the final year of the course. The Cornell Critical Thinking Test, the Ennis—Weir Essay Test and a qualitative student self-appraisal were administered to students in the fourth year of the degree prior to the intensive instructional unit on critical thinking and again after the unit had been completed. From the results it was concluded that explicit and concentrated instruction on critical thinking assisted social work students to improve their critical thinking abilities and to identify principles of critical thinking.     

Priming,Framing, and Position on Corporate Social Responsibility

This study tested the effects of priming, framing, and position on how participants judged a target corporation. The results suggested that the main effects of priming and framing affected participants' judgments of the target corporation's ethical CSR practices and attitudes toward the target corporation negatively. The crucial effects, however, were the interaction effects between framing and participants' positions held toward the target corporation and between priming and framing. The first of these interactions captured the degree to which the impact of framing depended on whether participants held more or less committed positions toward the target corporation. The second captured the degree to which the impact of framing depended on whether participants read the statements that explicitly primed CSR issues.