Effects of Mood Induction and Bias-Inducing Contextual Cues on Decision Making in Gamblers and Healthy Individuals

This study investigated the effect of mood and bias-eliciting contextual cues on decision making in problem gamblers and healthy individuals. The experimental design involved two between-subjects variables: mood induction (none induction, positive induction, negative induction) and gambling attitude (problem gamblers, healthy individuals), and one withinsubjects variable: bias-inducing contextual cues (gambler’s fallacy, illusion of control, wishful thinking, endowment effect). In four decision tasks, participants were asked to select one option among four (very prudent, prudent, hazardous, very hazardous) after having been induced with negative or positive mood (or without mood induction for control group). They filled the South Oaks Gambling Screen at the end of the experiment. Results showed that mood did not influence healthy participants; however, problem gamblers were more risk-seeking after negative mood induction.