Cognitive psychopathology of problem gambling

Abstract

Drawing on the available research literature on the cognitive distortions present during gambling, a typology of gambling-relevant cognitive distortions is presented. These include the magnification of gambling skills, minimization of other gambler's skills, superstitious beliefs (including talismanic, behavioral, and cognitive superstitions), interpretive biases (including internal attributions, external attributions, gambler's fallacy, chasing, anthropomorphism, reframed losses, hindsight bias), temporal telescoping, selective memory, predictive skill, illusion of control over luck (including luck as an uncontrollable variable, luck as a controllable variable, luck as a trait variable, luck as a contagion), and illusory correlation. In addition, gambling-relevant beliefs about the self are also discussed, including entitlement, omnipotence, cognitive reasoning, and magical thinking.