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THE INFLUENCE OF JUST WORLD BELIEFS AND PERSONAL DEPRIVATION ON GAMBLING
Project Approved 2006-07

Mr. Mitchell Callan (Principal Investigator)
Department of Psychology, University of Calgary

These studies aim to investigate the relationship between experiences of personal relative deprivation and gambling-related thoughts and behavior. Specifically, we are examining whether gambling might serve a justice seeking function for some people, as gambling might offer a means to pursing desired outcomes (e.g., money, status) that some people might feel they deserve but are otherwise unable to attain through conventional means. In Study 1, we are investigating whether self-reported experiences of personal deprivation predict severity of gambling problems, gambling-related attitudes and beliefs, and gambling urges. In Study 2, we are examining whether an experimental manipulation of relative deprivation concerns designed by the researchers can influence gambling behavior during a gambling-related game. The results of these studies should help us better understand some of the social psychological processes involved in people's motivations for gambling.

Status (Complete)

The purpose of this research was to examine whether people’s feeling of personal relative deprivation predict problematic gambling beliefs and behavior. Specifically, we examined whether gambling might serve as a “justice seeking” function for some people, as gambling might offer a means to pursing desirable outcomes (e.g., money, status) that some people might feel they deserve, but are otherwise deprived of and unable to attain through conventional means (e.g., by attaining better employment). Indeed, a fairly consistent finding in the gambling literature is that while economically deprived individuals do not gamble more in terms of absolute monetary value than their higher income counterparts, they do tend to spend a larger proportion of their income on gambling-related activities. Thus, in our research we considered the possibility that a sense of personal relative deprivation might be an important motivator for people to seek outcomes they feel they deserve through gambling.

The results of our first study supported our hypothesis that a measure of personal relative deprivation would positively predict severity of gambling problems, gambling-related beliefs and attitudes, and gambling urges. In a follow-up replication study conducted at the University of Western Ontario, we found that self-reports of personal relative deprivation predicted gambling urges and problem gambling severity over and above self-esteem and emotional stability.

Since these results are correlational and thus do not speak the direction of effect between deprivation concerns and gambling (e.g., people might feel deprived because they gamble and lose their money), we conducted another study to examine whether an experimental manipulation of personal relative deprivation concerns might produce an increased desire to gamble. In this study, some participants were informed that their discretionary income was either considerably lower than the average or about the same as the average of similar others. In a separate pilot study, we found that telling people that they have less discretionary income that others produced concerns with justice as revealed by a modified Stroop task. Following this manipulation, we gave participants $20 and the option to play a gambling game. The results were consistent with our prediction: Those participants who learned that they were relatively deprived opted to play the gambling game significantly more often (88%) than participants not relatively deprived (60%). Thus, consistent with our correlational evidence, feelings of personal relative deprivation seem to produce a desire to gamble.

Callan, M. J., Ellard, J.H., Shead, N. W., & Hodgins, D. C. (2008). Gambling as a search for justice: Examining the role of personal relative deprivation in gambling urges and gambling behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(11), 1514-1529. doi:10.1177/0146167208322956

Callan, M. J., Shead, N. W., Ellard, J. H., & Hodgins, D. (2007, June). The influence of just world beliefs and personal deprivation on gambling. Poster presented at the 68th Canadian Psychological Association Annual Convention, Ottawa, ON.

Ellard, J. H., & Callan, M. J. (2007, August). Beyond victim derogation and blame: Just world dynamics in everyday life. Invited paper presented at the 11th Ontario Symposium: The Psychology of Justice and Legitimacy, Waterloo, ON.

The Alberta Gaming Research Institute provides grant funding to support peer-endorsed academic investigations into many aspects of gambling research. The contents, recommendations, and findings of the associated research reports, posted on this website, represent the views of the researcher(s).

Last Updated: 01/10/08