Can a Near Win Kindle Motivation? The Impact of Nearly Winning on Motivation for Unrelated Rewards

Wadhwa, Monica; Kim, Jeehye Christine

doi:10.1177/0956797614568681

Cited by 28 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Collapsing across the two types, near-misses were aversive yet increased the desire to continue to play the game. These findings corroborate past studies with the same slot machine task (Billieux et al 2012;Chase and Clark 2010;Clark et al 2012), as well as other studies measuring persistent play across different frequencies of near-misses (Côté et al 2003;Kassinove and Schare 2001), and a recent study employing a broader range of motivational indices including salivation rate and walking speed (Wadhwa and Kim 2015). However, the current findings clearly show that these responses vary with the precise spatial configuration: the unpleasant component was driven exclusively by the NM-As, and the motivational effect was driven exclusively by the NM-Bs.…”

Section: Near-miss Typessupporting

confidence: 90%

Mixed Emotions to Near-Miss Outcomes: A Psychophysiological Study with Facial Electromyography

Sharman

Clark

2015

J Gambl Stud

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Near-misses occur across many forms of gambling and are rated as unpleasant while simultaneously increasing the motivation to continue playing. On slot machines, the icon position relative to the payline moderates the effects of near-misses, with near-misses before the payline increasing motivation, and near-misses after the payline being rated as aversive. Near-misses are also known to increase physiological arousal compared to fullmisses, but physiological measures to date have not been able to dissociate positive and negative emotional responses. The present study measured facial electromyography at the corrugator (brow) and zygomaticus (cheek) sites, as well as electrodermal activity (EDA), following gambling outcomes on a two-reel slot machine simulation in 77 novice gamblers. Behavioral data was collected using trial-by-trial ratings of motivation and valence. Wins were rated as more pleasant and increased motivation to continue playing, compared to non-win outcomes. Wins were also accompanied by increased EDA and zygomaticus activity. Near-misses after the payline were rated as more aversive than other non-wins, and this was accompanied by increased EDA and zygomaticus activity. Near-misses before the payline increased motivation to continue playing, and were accompanied by increased EDA. Thus, both subjective and physiological responses to near-misses differ for events falling either side of the payline. The 'near-miss effect' is not a unitary phenomenon. Facial EMG has differential sensitivity to positive and negative valence and may be a useful measure for future studies of gambling behavior.

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Section: Near-miss Typessupporting

confidence: 90%

Mixed Emotions to Near-Miss Outcomes: A Psychophysiological Study with Facial Electromyography

Sharman

Clark

2015

J Gambl Stud

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“…We suspect that this might be due to the limited sensitivity of our subjective rating procedure for measuring gambling motivation: the repetition of ratings on every trial, combined with the lack of behavioral relevance of these ratings for the participants, might have made the rating procedure boring and thus less reliable for some participants. In the future, more sensitive measures of gambling motivation such as persistent play (Billieux et al, 2012;Clark et al, 2013) or perhaps salivation (Wadhwa and Kim, 2015) might be used to reveal the boosting effect of near-misses on motivation in pathological gamblers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Amplified Striatal Responses to Near-Miss Outcomes in Pathological Gamblers

Sescousse

Janssen

Hashemi

et al. 2016

Neuropsychopharmacol

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Near-misses in gambling games are losing events that come close to a win. Near-misses were previously shown to recruit reward-related brain regions including the ventral striatum, and to invigorate gambling behavior, supposedly by fostering an illusion of control. Given that pathological gamblers are particularly vulnerable to such cognitive illusions, their persistent gambling behavior might result from an amplified striatal sensitivity to near-misses. In addition, animal studies have shown that behavioral responses to near-miss-like events are sensitive to dopamine, but this dopaminergic influence has not been tested in humans. To investigate these hypotheses, we recruited 22 pathological gamblers and 22 healthy controls who played a slot machine task delivering wins, near-misses and full-misses, inside an fMRI scanner. Each participant played the task twice, once under placebo and once under a dopamine D2 receptor antagonist (sulpiride 400 mg), in a doubleblind, counter-balanced design. Participants were asked about their motivation to continue gambling throughout the task. Across all participants, near-misses elicited higher motivation to continue gambling and increased striatal responses compared with full-misses. Crucially, pathological gamblers showed amplified striatal responses to near-misses compared with controls. These group differences were not observed following win outcomes. In contrast to our hypothesis, sulpiride did not induce any reliable modulation of brain responses to near-misses. Together, our results demonstrate that pathological gamblers have amplified brain responses to near-misses, which likely contribute to their persistent gambling behavior. However, there is no evidence that these responses are influenced by dopamine. These results have implications for treatment and gambling regulation. INTRODUCTIONPathological gambling is a behavioral addiction with dramatic consequences including bankruptcy, unemployment, and relationship problems. The prevalence among college students has risen sharply in the past 10 years (Nowak and Aloe, 2014), while the rate of attempted suicide, approaching 20%, is higher than for any other addictive disorder (Bischof et al, 2015). Central to pathological gambling is the loss of control over gambling behavior and the inability to stop playing. This compulsive behavior is postulated to be fueled by cognitive distortions regarding the game structure. One example is the misappraisal of nearmiss events-losing outcomes that come close to a winwhich invigorate ongoing gambling behavior, conceivably by fostering an illusion of control (Clark, 2010). Although the behavioral vulnerability of pathological gamblers to such cognitive distortions is well established (Michalczuk et al, 2011), the underlying neural and neurochemical mechanisms remain elusive. We aimed to address this question using a combination of fMRI and pharmacological manipulation.Near-miss events are a hallmark of many gambling games and are particularly frequent in slot machines, which are recogniz...

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“…These studies illustrate that narrowly missing more or less desirable outcomes elicited regret or relief (respectively), but these methods may be considered prone to demand characteristics. Other research on NW has primarily described these events as triggering frustrative non‐reward (Wadhwa & Kim, ) or attributions of skill acquisition (Clark et al, 2013), mechanisms that need not inherently rely on counterfactual processing. In the present study, we sought to test the link between gambling near‐misses and counterfactual thinking using a different approach, looking at individual differences in “counterfactual potency” on an independent task (Camille et al, ; Camille et al, ; Gillan et al, ; Wu & Clark, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Counterfactual Nature of Gambling Near‐misses: An Experimental Study

Dijk

et al. 2017

Behavioral Decision Making

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Research on gambling near‐misses has shown that objectively equivalent outcomes can yield divergent emotional and motivational responses. The subjective processing of gambling outcomes is affected substantially by close but non‐obtained outcomes (i.e. counterfactuals). In the current paper, we investigate how different types of near‐misses influence self‐perceived luck and subsequent betting behavior in a wheel‐of‐fortune task. We investigate the counterfactual mechanism of these effects by testing the relationship with a second task measuring regret/relief processing. Across two experiments (Experiment 1, n = 51; Experiment 2, n = 104), we demonstrate that near‐wins (neutral outcomes that are close to a jackpot) decreased self‐perceived luck, whereas near‐losses (neutral outcomes that are close to a major penalty) increased luck ratings. The effects of near‐misses varied by near‐miss position (i.e. whether the spinner stopped just short of, or passed through, the counterfactual outcome), consistent with established distinctions between upward versus downward, and additive versus subtractive, counterfactual thinking. In Experiment 1, individuals who showed stronger counterfactual processing on the regret/relief task were more responsive to near‐wins and near‐losses on the wheel‐of‐fortune task. The effect of near‐miss position was attenuated when the anticipatory phase (i.e. the spin and deceleration) was removed in Experiment 2. Further differences were observed within the objective gains and losses, between “clear” and “narrow” outcomes. Taken together, these results help substantiate the counterfactual mechanism of near‐misses. © 2017 The Authors Journal of Behavioral Decision Making Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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Can a Near Win Kindle Motivation? The Impact of Nearly Winning on Motivation for Unrelated Rewards

Cited by 28 publications

References 34 publications

Mixed Emotions to Near-Miss Outcomes: A Psychophysiological Study with Facial Electromyography

Mixed Emotions to Near-Miss Outcomes: A Psychophysiological Study with Facial Electromyography

Amplified Striatal Responses to Near-Miss Outcomes in Pathological Gamblers

On the Counterfactual Nature of Gambling Near‐misses: An Experimental Study

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