Predictors of Relapse in Problem Gambling: A Prospective Cohort Study

To explore the variation of predictors of relapse in treatment and support seeking gamblers. A prospective cohort study with 158 treatment and support seeking problem gamblers in South Australia. Key measures were selected using a consensus process with international experts in problem gambling and related addictions. The outcome measures were Victorian Gambling Screen (VGS) and behaviours related to gambling. Potential predictors were gambling related cognitions and urge, emotional disturbance, social support, sensation seeking traits, and levels of work and social functioning. Mean age of participants was 44 years (SD = 12.92 years) and 85 (54 %) were male. Median time for participants enrolment in the study was 8.38 months (IQR = 2.57 months). Patterns of completed measures for points in time included 116 (73.4 %) with at least a 3 month follow-up. Using generalised mixed-effects regression models we found gambling related urge was significantly associated with relapse in problem gambling as measured by VGS (OR 1.29; 95 % CI 1.12–1.49) and gambling behaviours (OR 1.16; 95 % CI 1.06–1.27). Gambling related cognitions were also significantly associated with VGS (OR 1.06; 95 % CI 1.01–1.12). There is consistent association between urge to gamble and relapse in problem gambling but estimates for other potential predictors may have been attenuated because of methodological limitations. This study also highlighted the challenges presented from a cohort study of treatment and support seeking problem gamblers.     

The Dark Side of Authenticity: Feeling “Real” While Gambling Interacts with Enhancement Motives to Predict Problematic Gambling Behavior

Engaging in activities that make people feel authentic or real is typically associated with a host of positive psychological and physiological outcomes (i.e., being authentic serves to increase well-being). In the current study, we tested the idea that authenticity might have a dark side among people engaged in an addictive or risky behavior (gambling). To test this possibility, we assessed gamblers (N = 61) who were betting on the National Hockey League playoff games at a sports bar. As predicted, people who felt authentic when gambling reported behavior associated with problem gambling (high frequency of betting) as well as problematic play (a big monetary loss and a big monetary win). Moreover, such behavior and gambling outcomes were particularly high among people who were motivated to gamble for the purpose of enhancement. The interaction of feeling authentic when betting and gambling for purposes of enhancing positive emotions proved especially troublesome for problematic forms of play. Implications of authenticity as a potential vulnerability factor for sports betting and other types of gambling are discussed.     

Kinesic Patterning in Deceptive and Truthful Interactions

A persistent question in the deception literature has been the extent to which nonverbal behaviors can reliably distinguish between truth and deception. It has been argued that deception instigates cognitive load and arousal that are betrayed through visible nonverbal indicators. Yet, empirical evidence has often failed to find statistically significant or strong relationships. Given that interpersonal message production is characterized by a high degree of simultaneous and serial patterning among multiple behaviors, it may be that patterns of behaviors are more diagnostic of veracity. Or it may be that the theorized linkage between internal states of arousal, cognitive taxation, and efforts to control behavior and nonverbal behaviors are wrong. The current investigation addressed these possibilities by applying a software program called THEME to analyze the patterns of kinesic movements (adaptor gestures, illustrator gestures, and speaker and listener head movements) rated by trained coders for participants in a mock crime experiment. Our multifaceted analysis revealed that the quantity and quality of patterns distinguish truths from untruths. Quantitative and qualitative analyses conducted by case and condition revealed high variability in the types and complexities of patterns that were produced and differences between truthful and deceptive respondents questioned about a theft. Patterns incorporating adaptors and illustrator gestures were correlated in counterintuitive ways with arousal, cognitive load, and behavioral control, and qualitative analyses produced unique insights into truthful and untruthful communication.     

Learning Skinner’s Verbal Operants: Comparing an Online Stimulus Equivalence Procedure to an Assigned Reading

The purpose of the present study was to compare the effects of an online stimulus equivalence procedure to that of an assigned reading when learning Skinner’s taxonomy of verbal behavior. Twenty-six graduate students participated via an online learning management system. One group was exposed to an online stimulus equivalence procedure (equivalence group) that was designed to teach relations among the names, antecedents, consequences, and examples of each elementary verbal operant. A comparison group (reading group) read a chapter from a popular textbook. Tests for the emergence of selection-based and topography-based intraverbal responses were then conducted, as were tests for generalization and maintenance. Overall, results suggest that the online equivalence procedure was not significantly more effective in promoting topography-based responses than the assigned reading. However, performance on selection-based tests was enhanced by the online equivalence procedure as was performance on topography-based tests when participants were required to provide operant names in response to consequences or examples. On average, the equivalence group performed at a level that was 10 percentage points (i.e., a full letter grade) above that of the reading group. The viability of the equivalence-based procedure is discussed in relation to the assigned reading.     

Young,Black, and (Still) in the Red: Parental Wealth,Race, and Student Loan Debt

Taking out student loans to assist with the costs of postsecondary schooling in the US has become the norm in recent decades. The debt burden young adults acquire during the higher education process, however, is increasingly stratified with black young adults holding greater debt burden than whites. Using data from the NLSY 1997 cohort, we examine racial differences in student loan debt acquisition and parental net wealth as a predictor contributing to this growing divide. We have four main results. First, confirming prior research, black young adults have substantially more debt than their white counterparts. Second, we find that this difference is partially explained by differences in wealth, family background, postsecondary educational differences, and family contributions to college. Third, young adults’ net worth explain a portion of the black–white disparity in debt, suggesting that both differences in accumulation of debt and ability to repay debt in young adulthood explain racial disparities in debt. Fourth, the black–white disparity in debt is greatest at the highest levels of parents’ net worth. Our findings show that while social and economic experiences can help explain racial disparities in debt, the situation is more precarious for black youth, who are not protected by their parents’ wealth. This suggests that the increasing costs of higher education and corresponding rise in student loan debt are creating a new form of stratification for recent cohorts of young adults, and that student loan debt may be a new mechanism by which racial economic disparities are inherited across generations.     

Community Resources in a Diverse City: Supermarket Location and Emerging Racial Hierarchies

Disparities are pronounced along racial/ethnic lines in the USA. Convention draws our attention to blacks and whites, but increased racial/ethnic diversity in the USA requires shifts in that focus. We contribute to studies of racial/ethnic stratification by interrogating the association between racial/ethnic composition and supermarket location in Houston, Texas. First, we assess the benefits of a new approach to defining the racial/ethnic composition of local areas, an approach that acknowledges an increasingly complex racial/ethnic demography. Second, we contribute to our understanding of emerging racial/ethnic stratification hierarchies by examining the position of the racial/ethnic composition categories relative to one another. Our results suggest a persistent link between racial/ethnic composition and supermarket location, which highlights entrenched black disadvantage coupled with malleable middle positions for Hispanic areas. The associated stratification hierarchy is gradual in nature, yet there is evidence supporting arguments that the USA is moving toward a tri-racial system.     

Windows to the Soul? Deliberate Eye Contact as a Cue to Deceit

Although people overwhelmingly believe that liars avoid eye contact, meta-analyses of deception literature have shown a non-significant relationship between gaze and deception. In the present experiment we measured eye movements in an innovative way. We coded the extent to which interviewees deliberately made eye contact with the interviewer. Liars take their credibility less for granted than truth tellers. They therefore may have a greater desire to be convincing and hence more inclined to monitor the interviewer to determine whether they seem to be being believed. We therefore hypothesized that liars would give more appearance of deliberately making eye contact than truth tellers (a relationship which opposes the stereotypical belief that liars look away). A total of 338 passengers at an international airport told the truth or lied about their forthcoming trip. As well as the deliberate eye contact variable, we coded the amount of time the interviewees looked away from the interviewer (e.g., gaze aversion), which is typically examined in deception research. Liars displayed more deliberate eye contact than truth tellers, whereas the amount of gaze aversion did not differ between truth tellers and liars.     

Long-term Mortality of War Cohorts: The Case of Finland

The system of full mobilisation and the modest effects of the World War II events on the civil population make Finland a highly useful case for exploring whether war veterans have elevated long-term mortality risks. Using data from the Human Mortality Database and a register-based micro sample with main causes of death, we study men in the cohorts who participated in the wars against the Soviet Union in 1939–1944. For these war cohorts, we find no indications of reduced survival after the early 1950s, as compared with male cohorts without combat experience. The absence of a long-term effect might be an artefact of mortality selection. In the first few years after war-end, death rates remained relatively high because of infectious diseases that killed off the weakest of the survivors. The results are in line with a series of other studies and illustrate that in the potential presence of cohort inversion there are no visible long-term effects of war experience on later-life survival.