The Effect of Religious Beliefs and Attitudes in Intrinsic and Extrinsic Optimism and Pessimism in Players of Games of Chance

Games of chance usually make people feel a whirlwind emotions, especially in gambling. While those games depend more on luck than individuals’ skills, optimism should be distinctive feature. Considering the classic literature effects religiosity risk behaviors, issue influence players has been less studied, when we considered as multidimensional concept comprising intrinsic and extrinsic pessimism. Aims: To analyze effect religious beliefs attitudes pessimism dimensions Method: The sample consists 271 recurring gambling, who answered questionnaire composed measures attitudes, optimism, pessimism, estimates future occurrences, evidencing good psychometric properties. Results: Players are moderately optimistic pessimistic, estimating 36% highly unlikely desirable events. structural model showed an overall higher (R2 = 44%) 5%). However, distinction between shown that anchor their different kinds beliefs. Extrinsic events, like winning lottery, were predicted by comparison with Inversely, tend to predict optimism. Conclusions: Optimism is not one-dimensional construct, analyzed considering dichotomies optimism/pessimism intrinsic/extrinsic. In being associated More intrinsically pessimistic seem recur positive expectations.