Betting on Your Feelings: The Interplay between Emotion and Cognition in Gambling Affective Task

It is now online the article: Betting on Your Feelings: The Interplay between Emotion and Cognition in Gambling Affective Task by Emanuela Mari, Clarissa Cricenti, Maddalena Boccia, Micaela Maria Zucchelli, Raffaella Nori, Laura Piccardi, Anna Maria Giannini and Alessandro Quaglieri in Journal of Clinical Medicine.

The aim of this study is to explore differences in personality traits and emotion regulation of people suffering from gambling disorders (GD), substance-dependent gamblers (SDGs), and healthy controls (HCs). Additionally, the study proposes a new experimental task: the “Gambling Affective Task” (GAT) to investigate the influence of affective priming on risk-taking behaviors. The findings indicate that participants placed lower bets following positive priming. Additionally, SDGs wagered significantly higher amounts than HCs, regardless of priming type. In general, participants exhibited longer response times after positive priming trials, compared to negative and neutral priming trials. These findings suggest that experiencing positive emotions can act as a protective factor by delaying and lengthening gambling behaviors. By comparing gamblers with and without substance comorbidity, we can gain insight into the exclusive factors of GD and improve our understanding of this disorder. By elucidating the impact of emotional states on risk-taking, the research also provides new insights into the prevention and treatment of GD.