The Brief Addiction Science Information Source (BASIS)

The WAGER Vol. 5(4) - Addiction and Criminal Involvement 2: A Model

Last week's WAGER [WAGER 5(3)] considered research from Germany that Figure 1 examined the prevalence of criminal behavior among problem and non-problem gamblers. This week, we take a closer look at how pathological gambling, gambling and criminal behavior may be related to each other. LISREL is a computer software program that processes data to provide weights or correlative values for how elements of models relate to each other. For example, suppose we distribute a survey that asks questions about salaries, level of education, and years of work experience. Based on a common sense model, we can hypothesize that level of... Read more →

The WAGER Vol. 5(3) - Addiction and Criminal Involvement 1: Differential Prevalences

Regular WAGER readers know that many a journal article has been devoted to the relationship between gambling and criminal activity [e.g., WAGER 4(13)]. This discourse was furthered by recent work by German researchers Gerhard Meyer and Michael A. Stadler. Their study had two objectives: 1) Examining patterns of criminal behavior among pathological and non-pathological gamblers and 2) Building a model to explain crime's relationship to the addictions. This week's WAGER will discuss the first goal; next week, the second goal will be addressed. The authors assembled a sample of 300 pathological gamblers currently in treatment. Pathological gamblers were identified using... Read more →

The WAGER Vol. 5(2) - Encore une Fois: A Replication Study from Quebec

Prevalence is an epidemiological snapshot that reflects the frequency of disease for a particular period of time. This is why epidemiologists sometimes refer to it as point prevalence. Since it is static measure, a single prevalence estimate cannot be used to demonstrate change over time [see WAGER 4(30)]. Replication studies try to overcome this limitation by combining a series of prevalence estimates. Thus, the story told by Ladouceur and his colleagues in their 1989 Quebec prevalence study1 (1991) was enhanced by the results of their follow-up study 2 (1999) conducted in 1996. The figures at left show the changes in... Read more →

The WAGER Vol. 5(1) - Internal Loci of Control

The concept of locus of control is a critical component of many cognitive therapies for pathological gambling. In the language of psychology, "locus of control" refers to how an individual understands the factors responsible for a particular behavior, event, or outcome. Individuals who believe they can determine the outcome of an event have an internal locus of control. Conversely, those who believe that outside forces are primarily responsible for the outcome of events have an external locus of control. This concept can be used to distinguish between two distinct types of gamblers. The hypothetical cases below illustrate these types: Gambler... Read more →