The Repository @ St. Cloud State

Open Access Knowledge and Scholarship

Date of Award

8-2017

Culminating Project Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Applied Behavior Analysis: M.S.

Department

Community Psychology, Counseling and Family Therapy

College

School of Health and Human Services

First Advisor

Benjamin N. Witts

Second Advisor

Michele Traub

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Keywords and Subject Headings

Gambling, Adjunctive Behavior, Schedule-Induced Behavior, Concurrent Consumption

Abstract

Problem gambling is a burden to the individual gambler and society. Efforts to study the development of problem gambling are thus socially important. Consumption has been demonstrated to have a relation with increased gambling persistence, but little research has been done on concurrent consumption and gambling. Schedule-induced behavior, or adjunctive behavior, may provide a possible means to study concurrent consumption and gambling. In an effort to better understand factors that might contribute to problem gambling, four experiments were conducted that involved manipulations of a simulated slot machine with concurrent access to food and non-alcoholic drink. All experiments consisted of two, approximately 30-minute, sessions. Experiment 1 had six participants complete the same win conditions across sessions. Experiment 2 had six participants complete different win conditions across sessions. Experiment 3 had six participants complete the same win conditions across sessions, while the simulation played on its own. Experiment 4 had six participants complete two sessions of the same win conditions, but with light sequences that were altered across sessions. While participants did not display the characteristic pattern of schedule-induced behavior in a molecular win-to-win analysis, other molar session-wide patterns emerged with regards to consumption and grooming. Implications for human schedule-induced behavior and gambling research are discussed.

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