Obtaining quality data using behavioral measures of impulsivity in gambling research with Amazon's Mechanical Turk

Validation of the German long and short versions of the UPPS-P Impulsive Behavior Scale

OBJECTIVE

The UPPS-P Impulsive Behavior Scale is a widely used self-report measure of impulsivity, but there is currently no validated German version that includes the Positive Urgency scale.

METHODS

We combined existing German translations of UPPS scales and included the Positive Urgency dimension to validate the UPPS-P in a sample of 399 participants. In addition, we developed a revised short version of the UPPS-P (SUPPS-P) with 20 items and conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to verify the structure in an independent validation sample with 349 participants. To determine evidence of convergent and discriminant validity, we used measures of impulsivity, depression, anxiety, stress, problematic alcohol and substance use.

RESULTS

CFA of the five factorial structure of the UPPS-P demonstrated acceptable fits and evidence of validity and reliability for the subscales. Psychometric characteristics of the SUPPS-P using the original item configuration were not satisfactory. As a result, we developed a revised German version of the SUPPS-P and confirmed the five-factor structure using a CFA in the validation sample. For the revised version, model fits and evidence of validity and internal consistencies were good. Associations with other constructs were as expected. For example, whereas Sensation Seeking was associated moderately with problematic alcohol use, lacking associations of Lack of Premeditation to internalizing symptoms showed evidence of discriminant validity.

DISCUSSION

The German translations of both UPPS-P and SUPPS-P are valid tools for measuring impulsive behaviors. They are well-suited for exploring the associations between different facets of impulsivity and psychopathological phenomena.

Gamification and motivation: Impact on delay discounting performance

Delay discounting is a phenomenon strongly associated with impulsivity. However, in order for a measured discounting rate in an experiment to meaningfully generalize to choices made elsewhere in life, participants must provide thoughtful, engaged answers during the assessment. Classic discounting tasks may not optimize intrinsic motivation or enjoyment, and a participant who is disengaged from the task is likely to behave in a way that provides a biased estimate of their discounting function. We assessed degree of delay discounting in a task intended to vary level of participant motivation. This was accomplished by introducing varying levels of gamification, the application of game design principles to a non-game context. Experiment 1 compared three versions of the delay discounting task with differing degrees of gamification and compared performance and task enjoyment across those variations, while Experiment 2 used two conditions (one gamified, one not). Participants found more gamified versions of the task more enjoyable than the other conditions, without producing substantial between-group differences in most cases. Thus, more polished task gameplay can provide a more enjoyable experience for participants without undermining delay discounting effects commonly reported in the literature. We also found that in all experimental conditions, higher levels of interest in or enjoyment of the task tended to be associated with more rapid discounting. This may suggest that low task motivation may result in less impulsive choice and suggests that participants who find delay discounting experiments sufficiently boring may bias assessments of value across delays.

Behavioral Addiction from the Asian Americans Perspective: Exploration of Public and Help-Seeking Stigma

Asian Americans have been unlikely to seek mental health services despite their needs for treatment, particularly when experiencing significant gambling or Internet gaming problems. Stigma is often considered to be a barrier to seeking help. To understand how stigma impacts Asian Americans' willingness to seek mental health services, the present study used an online survey to investigate the public stigma associated with addictive behaviors and help-seeking stigma among Asian Americans. Participants (N = 431) who self-identified as Asian American, reside in the US. Using a between-groups vignette study design, it was found that the individual with a behavioral addiction received more stigma compared to the individual who experienced a financial crisis. In addition, participants were more likely to seek help if they experienced addictive behavioral problems rather than financial problems. Lastly, this study did not reveal a significant relation between public stigma attached to addictive behaviors and Asian Americans' willingness to seek help, but it found that participants' willingness to seek help was positively associated with public stigma of help seeking (β = 0.23) and negatively associated with self-stigma attached to help-seeking (β = - 0.09). Based on these findings, recommendations are provided to inform community outreach to reduce stigma and promote mental health service utilization among Asian Americans.

Modeling urgency in the lab: Exploring the associations between self-reported urgency and behavioral responses to negative outcomes in laboratory gambling

Impulsivity is a multifaceted construct that relates to different behaviors in everyday life and has been associated with many psychopathological disorders and behavioral problems, such as problematic gambling behavior. One questionnaire to measure these several facets on a trait level is the UPPS-P Impulsive Behavior Scale. Specifically, the UPPS-P investigates five distinct facets: (a) negative urgency, (b) lack of premeditation, (c) lack of perseverance, (d) sensation seeking, and (e) positive urgency. Negative urgency at a trait level in particular seems to be associated with the development of psychopathological disorders. To date, there are no established state measures of negative urgency. However, it was recently proposed that speeding after losses might be a suitable measure. Thus, in this study, we explored the possible relationship between a state measure of negative urgency modeled through a behavioral gambling task and a trait measure of negative urgency through the UPPS-P questionnaire. We used correlational and network analyses in an aggregated database of eight samples (total N = 1216) to explore the potential relationships between post-loss speeding on the behavioral gambling task and UPPS-P scores (by combining trait vs. item-based analyses). We found that the degree of speeding after losses (post-loss speeding) did not correlate with the trait measure of impulsivity in general and negative urgency specifically, either at the latent trait level or on an item-based level. This null finding indicates that our state measure of post-loss speeding and negative urgency on a trait level does not seem to capture the same underlying constructs. Implications for personality research are discussed.

Never mind losing the pound… still got the penny! The influence of trait greed on risky decision behavior in a mixed and gain only BART

Risk proneness and the lack of loss aversion are two different reasons to show varying degrees of risk-taking in decision situations. So far, little is known about the extent to which these two processes underly the influence of trait greed, trait anxiety, and age. The present study investigated risk- taking in decision making in these trait contexts using two variants of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) in an online study: A gain only and a mixed gambling BART. This was done to separate risk proneness from loss aversion. Individuals with high trait greed showed an increased risk decision-making behavior due to an increased risk proneness and not due to a reduced loss aversion. This is partly in contrast with previous findings in other tasks assessing risk proneness and loss aversion. These differences may be caused by the changes of perception during the gain only task. No significant effects were found for trait anxiety or age concerning risk-taking in decision-making behavior. Possible explanations for the lack of influence of these constructs are skewed distributions, omitting pathologically anxious subjects in anxiety and a restricted age range. The findings suggest that a lack of loss aversion is not a driving factor to explain elevated risk-taking in decision-making behavior in persons with high trait greed, but a higher reaction to reward in predominantly rewarding contexts.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-022-03553-6.

Psychometric evaluation of the NORC diagnostic screen for gambling problems (NODS) for the assessment of DSM-5 gambling disorder

The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) Diagnostic Screen for Gambling Problems (NODS) is one of the most used outcome measures in gambling intervention trials. However, a screen based on DSM-5 gambling disorder criteria has yet to be developed or validated since the DSM-5 release in 2013. This omission is possibly because the criteria for gambling disorder only underwent minor changes from DSM-IV to DSM-5: the diagnostic threshold was reduced from 5 to 4 criteria, and the illegal activity criterion was removed. Validation of a measure that captures these changes is still warranted. The current study examined the psychometric properties of an online self-report past-year adaptation of the NODS based on DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for gambling disorder (i.e., NODS-GD). A diverse sample of participants (N = 959) was crowdsourced via Amazon's TurkPrime. Internal consistency and one-week test-retest reliability were good. High correlations (r = 0.74-0.77) with other measures of gambling problem severity were observed in addition to moderate correlations (r = 0.21-0.36) with related but distinct constructs (e.g., gambling expenditures, time spent gambling, other addictive behaviors). All nine of the DSM-5 criteria loaded positively on one principal component, which accounted for 40% of the variance. Classification accuracy (i.e., sensitivity, specificity, predictive power) was generally very good with respect to the PGSI and ICD-10 diagnostic criteria. Future studies are encouraged to establish a gold standard self-report measure of gambling problems and develop agreed-upon recommendations for the use and interpretation of crowdsourced addiction data.

Promoting self-change in cannabis use disorder: Findings from a randomized trial

BACKGROUND

A growing body of literature supports the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and motivational interviewing (MI) for the treatment of problematic cannabis use, diagnostically referred to as cannabis use disorder, though most individuals do not access formal treatment. Stepped-care-type models emphasize interventions across a continuum of severity and there is a need for more treatment options across this continuum. This project focused on the evaluation of the least intensive of the individual interventions - promotion of self-directed recovery.

METHODS

Using a three-arm randomized control trial design, adults (N = 186) with problematic cannabis use and who wished to recover with minimal professional support were recruited from across Canada and randomized to receive a self-directed treatment workbook based on CBT and MI principles (WB; n = 61), the workbook plus a single MI session (WMI; n = 61) or a delayed treatment control (DT; n = 65) condition. Participants completed 3-month and 6-month follow-up assessments.

RESULTS

Across conditions, GEE modeling revealed that the baseline to 3-month slopes differed significantly from zero, ps < 0.001. Participants in the WMI condition reduced their frequency of use to a greater extent than the WB alone, p = 0.005, and DT groups, p = 0.02. Chi-square analysis revealed that participants in the WMI condition also showed greater rates of abstinence at 3-months follow-up than participants in the WB or DT condition, p = 0.046. Changes in the frequency of cannabis use between 3-months and 6-months did not differ significantly between groups, ps > 0.05. For quantity of cannabis use, a significant effect of time emerged, p = 0.002. However, no between-group effects were significant from baseline to 3-months, or from 3- to 6-months, ps > 0.06.

CONCLUSION

Overall, results support the utility of a brief self-directed workbook in combination with a single MI session at promoting changes in cannabis use. This self-directed intervention has the potential to fill an important need in that the self-directed intervention can attract individuals who wish to recover with minimal professional support.

CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION

[https://www.isrctn.com/], identifier [ISRCTN426 32893].

Delay Discounting in Established and Proposed Behavioral Addictions: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Steep delay discounting, or a greater preference for smaller-immediate rewards over larger-delayed rewards, is a common phenomenon across a range of substance use and psychiatric disorders. Non-substance behavioral addictions (e.g., gambling disorder, internet gaming disorder, food addiction) are of increasing interest in delay discounting research. Individual studies have reported steeper discounting in people exhibiting various behavioral addictions compared to controls or significant correlations between discounting and behavioral addiction scales; however, not all studies have found significant effects. To synthesize the published research in this area and identify priorities for future research, we conducted a pre-registered systematic review and meta-analysis (following PRISMA guidelines) of delay discounting studies across a range of behavioral addiction categories. The final sample included 78 studies, yielding 87 effect sizes for the meta-analysis. For studies with categorical designs, we found statistically significant, medium-to-large effect sizes for gambling disorder (Cohen’s d = 0.82) and IGD (d = 0.89), although the IGD effect size was disproportionately influenced by a single study (adjusted d = 0.53 after removal). Categorical internet/smartphone studies were non-significant (d = 0.16, p = 0.06). Aggregate correlations in dimensional studies were statistically significant, but generally small magnitude for gambling (r = 0.22), internet/smartphone (r = 0.13) and food addiction (r = 0.12). Heterogeneity statistics suggested substantial variability across studies, and publication bias indices indicated moderate impact of unpublished or small sample studies. These findings generally suggest that some behavioral addictions are associated with steeper discounting, with the most robust evidence for gambling disorder. Importantly, this review also highlighted several categories with notably smaller effect sizes or categories with too few studies to be included (e.g., compulsive buying, exercise addiction). Further research on delay discounting in behavioral addictions is warranted, particularly for categories with relatively few studies.

Reward-Related Decision-Making in Current and Past Disordered Gambling: Implications for Impulsive Choice and Risk Preference in the Maintenance of Gambling Disorder

Impulsive reward-related decision-making (RRDM) is robustly associated with gambling disorder (GD), although its role in the development and perpetuation of GD is still being investigated. This project sought to examine the possible roles of impulsive and risky choice, two aspects of RRDM, in the perpetuation of GD. Additionally, the potential moderating role of comorbid substance misuse was considered. A total of 434 participants with symptoms of current GD and symptoms of concurrent substance use disorder (SUD; n = 105), current GD with past SUD (n = 98), past GD with current SUD (n = 53), or past GD with past substance use disorder (SUD; n = 92), and 96 healthy controls were recruited through MTurk. Participants completed a randomly adjusting delay discounting (a measure of impulsive choice) and probabilistic discounting (a measure of risky choice) task and self-report questionnaires of gambling participation, GD and SUD symptomology, and trait impulsivity. Although control participants showed significantly greater delay discounting compared to individuals with a current or history of GD, no significant group differences emerged between individuals with current GD or a history of GD. Individuals with current GD showed significantly less probabilistic discounting compared to individuals with a history of GD and control participants showed the greatest rates of probabilistic discounting. These effects remained after controlling for lifetime gambling symptom severity and trait impulsivity. Overall, these findings suggest a potential maintaining role of risky choice in gambling disorder, but do not support a maintaining role for impulsive choice.

Gambling and COVID-19: Initial Findings from a UK Sample

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK Government placed society on ‘lockdown’, altering the gambling landscape. This study sought to capture the immediate lockdown-enforced changes in gambling behaviour. UK adults (n = 1028) were recruited online. Gambling behaviour (frequency and weekly expenditure, perceived increase/decrease) was measured using a survey-specific questionnaire. Analyses compared gambling behaviour as a function of pre-lockdown gambling status, measured by the Brief Problem Gambling Scale. In the whole sample, gambling participation decreased between pre- and during-lockdown. Both gambling frequency and weekly expenditure decreased during the first month of lockdown overall, but, the most engaged gamblers did not show a change in gambling behaviour, despite the decrease in opportunity and availability. Individuals whose financial circumstances were negatively affected by lockdown were more likely to perceive an increase in gambling than those whose financial circumstances were not negatively affected. Findings reflect short-term behaviour change; it will be crucial to examine, at future release of lockdown, if behaviour returns to pre-lockdown patterns, or whether new behavioural patterns persist.

A unified online test battery for cognitive impulsivity reveals relationships with real-world impulsive behaviours

Impulsive behaviours are a major contributor to the global burden of disease, but existing measures of cognitive impulsivity have suboptimal reliability and validity. Here, we introduce the Cognitive Impulsivity Suite, comprising three computerized/online tasks using a gamified interface. We conceptualize rapid-response impulsive behaviours (disinhibition) as arising from the failure of three distinct cognitive mechanisms: attentional control, information gathering and monitoring/shifting. We demonstrate the construct and criterion validity of the Cognitive Impulsivity Suite in an online community sample (N = 1,056), show test-retest reliability and between-subjects variability in a face-to-face community sample (N = 63), and replicate the results in a community and clinical sample (N = 578). The results support the theoretical architecture of the attentional control, information gathering and monitoring/shifting constructs. The Cognitive Impulsivity Suite demonstrated incremental criterion validity for prediction of real-world, addiction-related problems and is a promising tool for large-scale research on cognitive impulsivity.

Evaluating Extinction, Renewal, and Resurgence of Operant Behavior in Humans with Amazon Mechanical Turk

Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is a crowdsourcing marketplace providing researchers with the opportunity to collect behavioral data from remote participants at a low cost. Recent research demonstrated reliable extinction effects, as well as renewal and resurgence of button pressing with MTurk participants. To further examine the generality of these findings, we replicated and extended these methods across six experiments arranging reinforcement and extinction of a target button press. In contrast to previous findings, we did not observe as reliable of decreases in button pressing during extinction (1) after training with VR or VI schedules of reinforcement, (2) in the presence or absence of context changes, or (3) with an added response cost for button pressing. However, we found that that a 1-point response cost for all button presses facilitated extinction to a greater extent than the absence of response cost. Nevertheless, we observed ABA renewal of button pressing when changing background contexts across phases and resurgence when extinguishing presses on an alternative button. Our findings suggest that MTurk could be a viable platform from which to ask and address questions about extinction and relapse processes, but further procedural refinements will be necessary to improve the replicability of control by experimental contingencies.

Recollected usage of legal youth gambling products: Comparisons between adult gamblers and non-gamblers in the UK and Australia

The UK is rare in allowing a number of gambling forms to be used legally by children under the age of 18. Some previous research indicates that adult problem gamblers are more likely to recollect using these products as children. However, no research has as yet assessed recollected levels of use irrespective of adult gambling status, or investigated these issues in other countries. This is relevant given that at least two of the tested products, coin push machines and crane grab machines, exist in other countries. The present research involves cross-sectional surveys conducted amongst UK (N = 2010) and Australian adults (N = 640), associating recollected legal youth gambling usage with past 12-month gambling, and levels of problem gambling amongst adult gamblers. Adult gamblers recollected using more legal youth gambling products than non-gamblers. For example, 66.6% of UK gamblers reported legally buying National Lottery tickets aged 16-17, compared to 20.9% of UK non-gamblers; 60.8% of Australian gamblers reported using coin push machines as a child, compared to 48.6% of Australian non-gamblers. Overall, 18 of 19 tested associations were significant and in the hypothesized direction for the UK sample, compared to five of eight for the Australian sample. The legal provision of gambling to children is a topic for further international research and policy consideration.

Gambling in COVID-19 Lockdown in the UK: Depression, Stress, and Anxiety

To combat the spread of COVID-19, the UK Government implemented a range of "lockdown" measures. Lockdown has necessarily changed the gambling habits of gamblers in the UK, and the impact of these measures on the mental health of gamblers is unknown. To understand the impact of lockdown on gamblers, in April 2020, after ~6 weeks of lockdown, participants (N = 1,028, 72% female) completed an online questionnaire. Gambling engagement data was collected for pre-lockdown via the Brief Problem Gambling Screen (BPGS) allowing participants to be classified as Non-Gamblers (NG), Non-Problem Gamblers (NPG) or Potential Problem Gamblers (PPG). The Depression, Stress, and Anxiety Scale (DASS21) was used to measure depression, stress, and anxiety scores both pre- and during-lockdown. Results indicate that depression, stress and anxiety has increased across the whole sample. Participants classified in the PPG group reported higher scores on each sub scale at both baseline and during lockdown. Increases were observed on each DASS21 subscale, for each gambler group, however despite variable significance and effect sizes, the magnitude of increases did not differ between groups. Lockdown has had a significant impact on mental health of participants; whilst depression stress and anxiety remain highest in potential problem gamblers, pre-lockdown gambler status did not affect changes in DASS21 scores.

Self-reported impulsivity does not predict response caution

The broad construct of impulsivity is one that spans both personality and cognitive ability. Despite a common overarching construct, previous research has found no relationship between self-report measures of impulsivity and people's ability to inhibit pre-potent responses. Here, we use evidence accumulation models of choice reaction time tasks to extract a measure of "response caution" (boundary separation) and examine whether this correlates with self-reported impulsivity as measured by the UPPS-P questionnaire. Response caution reflects whether an individual makes decisions based on more (favouring accuracy) or less (favouring speed) evidence. We reasoned that this strategic dimension of behaviour is conceptually closer to the tendencies that self-report impulsivity measures probe than what is traditional measured by inhibition tasks. In a meta-analysis of five datasets (total N = 296), encompassing 19 correlations per subscale, we observe no evidence that response caution correlates with self-reported impulsivity. Average correlations between response caution and UPPS-P subscales ranged from rho = -0.02 to -0.04. While the construct of response caution has demonstrated value in understanding individual differences in cognition, brain functioning and aging; the factors underlying what has been called "impulsive information processing" appear to be distinct from the concept of impulsivity derived from self-report.

Sexual Desire and Subjective Distress among Pornography Consumers

Clients are increasingly seeking professional help related to pornography viewing in the digital age. Given distress is a key reason clients seek help, the purpose of this study was to identify variables associated with it. Drawing from recent literature, we examined the roles of solitary sexual desire, moral incongruence, feelings of dysregulation, and shame-proneness in predicting subjective distress among consumers. Surveys were administered through Amazon Mechanical Turk to US adults (n = 559). Structural equation models supported moderated mediation, where the positive relationship between sexual desire and subjective distress was fully mediated by feelings of dysregulation, and the relationship between sexual desire and feelings of dysregulation was moderated by moral incongruence. Moral incongruence was the largest direct predictor of subjective distress, while shame-proneness was not significantly associated with it. This study points to targets for intervention research, reinforces findings that values play an integral role in how individuals interpret their viewing and whether they feel distressed, and suggests that values may impact how individuals interpret their sexual desire. Implications for practitioners are discussed, including the need for person-in-environment assessment and more holistic care than has traditionally been proposed in the sex addiction field.

Structural or dispositional? An experimental investigation of the experience of winning in social casino games (and impulsivity) on subsequent gambling behaviors

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

In the present research, we experimentally investigated whether the experience of winning (i.e., inflated payout rates) in a social casino game influenced social casino gamers' subsequent decision to gamble for money. Furthermore, we assessed whether facets of dispositional impulsivity - negative and positive urgency in particular - also influenced participants' subsequent gambling.

METHODS

Social casino gamers who were also current gamblers (N = 318) were asked to play a social casino game to assess their perceptions of the game in exchange for $3. Unbeknownst to them, players were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: winning (n = 110), break-even (n = 103), or losing (n = 105). After playing, participants were offered a chance to gamble their $3 renumeration in an online roulette game.

RESULTS

A total of 280 participants (88.1%) elected to gamble, but no between-condition variation in the decision to gamble emerged. Furthermore, there were no differences in gambling on the online roulette between condition. However, higher levels of both negative and positive urgency increased the likelihood of gambling. Finally, impulsivity did not moderate the relationship between experience of winning and decision to gamble.

CONCLUSION

The results suggest that dispositional factors, including impulsive urgency, are implicated in the choice to gamble for social casino gamers following play.