The 20th annual Symposium will be held on Thursday, April 23, 2009.

On the Allure of Gambling When a Risk-Free Response is Concurrently Available
Poster Session-Science Complex Atrium, 4:00 PM

Haley  Sztykiel,   '09 89
   Major: Psychology
   Hometown: Beverly Hills, MI

Sponsor(s): Andrew Brandt
Support:  

Abstract: 
In a repeated-measures experiment, 18 (3 male and 15 female) participants from the Introduction to Psychology research pool were exposed to three different gambling conditions across three 40-min sessions that consisted of 50 trials each. Participants started each session with zero tokens (poker chips that were worth one entry into a $50 lottery). On each free-choice trial, participants could choose between two options: earn or gamble. Each choice for the earn option produced 1, 2, or 3, tokens (depending on the condition) with certainty. Each choice for the gamble option required a 1 token wager and could have resulted in losing the token or winning 3 or 7 tokens. Because the gamble option cost the participant 1 token to play, a participant could not choose the gamble option if they had zero tokens, therefore, some of the 50 trials may have been forced-choice trials because the participant was not allowed to choose the gamble option. The results of repeated-measures analysis of variance resulted in no effect of the earn option value on participants preference for the gamble option during free-choice trials (gambles/free choices). However, a separate analysis revealed a significant treatment by session interaction on participants’ preference for the gamble option during free-choice trials. An examination of this interaction revealed that participants’ preference for the gamble option increased across consecutive sessions when the earn option produced 1 token, decreased across consecutive sessions when the earn option produced 2 tokens, and was unchanged across consecutive sessions when the earn option produced 3 tokens.

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