Probing the link between narcissism and gambling: the mediating role of judgment and decision‐making biases

Abstract

In this paper, three studies link narcissism to gambling in general, and gambling-related problems in particular, and the predictive link is shown to be mediated by judgment and decision processes. In Study 1, we demonstrate that narcissism relates to greater self-reported gambling frequency and gambling-related monetary expenditures in two samples. We extend these initial findings in Study 2 by showing that narcissism predicts higher reports of gambling-related pathology, as measured with a DSM-IV-based pathological gambling (PG) screen. Finally, we demonstrate in Study 3 that the link between gambling pathology and narcissism is partially mediated by narcissists' overconfidence, heightened risk acceptance, and myopic focus on reward, as measured by participants' behavioral performance on the Georgia Gambling Task (GGT) and Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). Discussion focuses on the empirical validation of the long-assumed narcissism-gambling link, the decision processes that underlie this link, and relations between narcissists' self-perceptions and their self-defeating behavior, especially in risk-relevant contexts.

Smartphone Addiction and Associated Psychological Factors

“…This suggests that the more narcissistic a person is, the more likely they are to be addicted to their smartphone. This finding supports previous research that links narcissism with addictive disorders (Lakey et al, 2008;Rose, 2007;Stinson et al, 2009). These results build upon previous research in the area of smartphone addiction, which has shown that 10% of participants were addicted to smartphones and 34% displayed addictive symptoms (Hope, 2010).…”

Betting on Illusory Patterns: Probability Matching in Habitual Gamblers

“…The CRT was originally developed to detect precisely such differences, such as impulsivity on inter-temporal choice tasks, and has been shown to do so (Frederick 2005). Consequently, our results are in line with other studies suggesting that gamblers are more impulsive (e.g., MacLaren et al 2012;Marmurek et al 2015;Michalczuk et al 2011;Miedl et al 2014), have higher levels of narcissism (e.g., Lakey et al 2008), have lower levels of self-control (e.g., Slutske et al 2012), more frequently show gambling-related irrational thinking patterns (e.g., Ellery and Stewart 2014;Fortune and Goodie 2012;Studer et al 2014;Rogers 1998), and are more susceptible to superstition (Joukhador et al 2004). Beyond gambling and related tasks, lower CRT scores also predict religious and other paranormal beliefs (Gervais and Norenzayan 2012;Pennycook et al 2012;Shenhav et al 2012).…”

Narcissism: An Integrative Synthesis and Dominance Complementarity Model

“…Compared with managers (Hull, Bosley, & Udell, 1980) and with the population at large , entrepreneurs score higher on personality measures designed to assess risk-taking propensity. Likewise, narcissists are more likely to make risky investment decisions (Foster, Reidy, Misra, & Goff, 2011) and to gamble more frequently (Lakey, Rose, Campbell, & Goodie, 2008). Beyond the tendency to make risky decisions, hubristic overconfidence has also been implicated in driving some individuals to ignore past failures and to persist in entrepreneurial activities (Hayward, Forster, Sarasvathy, & Fredrickson, 2010).…”