Richard Tunney

Aston University · Department of Psychology

Background Research suggests that a two-factor model of impulsivity predicts Substance Use Disorder and Gambling Disorder. We aimed to determine whether a similar factor structure was present for Gaming Disorder (GD) and Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD). Methods Secondary data analysis was conducted on survey responses from 372 participants who had...

Background and aims: The Problem and Pathological Gambling Measure (PPGM) is increasingly used to assess gambling problems, exhibiting excellent correspondence between population surveys and clinical interviews. Despite its increasing use as a sum-scoring measurement for gambling problem severity, the internal structure of this survey has not been...

Time has a profound effect on our decision-making. This chapter explores why we sometimes prefer small, immediate outcomes instead of waiting for more significant outcomes in the future. This preference is one aspect of impulsivity and reflects a relatively stable individual difference. We discuss the Marshmallow test as a test used to study delay...

Reasoning about probabilities is a fundamental part of decision-making. However, it is the area where people seem to deviate the most from normative expectations. In this chapter, we describe Bayes’ theorem, which prescribes a method of making inferences using probabilities, and we see that people systematically fail to meet the Bayesian benchmark....

Laboratory research on choice anomalies is often based on one-shot decisions where the probabilities are described to the participants. In the real world, people might not initially know the probability of an outcome but often repeat their decisions, allowing learning to occur. This chapter discusses evidence that people can learn to make better de...

Choice anomalies and systematic biases in decision-making allow scientists to develop descriptive theories of cognition. They are litmus tests of decision-making. This chapter discusses a research programme by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky based on the idea that people often make decisions using simple heuristics. These heuristics systematically...

How do people make decisions? How do we judge whether a decision is good or bad? In this chapter, we describe how the quality of a decision is determined by how it is made. We judge the quality of a decision by whether or not it meets the normative expectations of rational choice theory. Historically, this meant that decisions should be made to max...

Why are some people good, and some people bad, at making decisions? Each of us can sometimes meet normative expectations and sometimes we cannot. A popular solution to this puzzle is to claim that we have two decision-making processes. One is analytic and the other, more imperfect, is emotional. In this chapter we look at some of the evidence in fa...

Background: Research suggests that a two-factor model impulsivity predicts substance addictions and use and Gambling Disorder. We aimed to determine whether a similar factor structure was present for Gaming Disorder (GD) and Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD). Methods: Secondary data analysis was conducted on survey responses from 372 participants who...

The Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) is an internationally regarded screening tool for assessing problem gambling. However, it has not been confirmed whether the PGSI measures the same latent construct across different socio-demographic groups. If this is not demonstrated, comparisons across groups may not be valid. Measurement invariance of...

Objective: The Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) is the most common population measurement of disordered gambling. However, there is some debate regarding the construct being measured, and whether it is a single factor of gambling problems, or separate indices of dependence and harms. The existing literature using exploratory and confirmatory...

Several factors of trait impulsivity were analysed to determine which may contribute towards potentially disordered gaming, as measured by the DSM-5 and ICD-11 criteria. Three-hundred and seventy-two adults, sourced from a convenient sample (prolific.co) and a targeted gaming forum sample (Reddit and Facebook), completed an online survey hosted at...

Background: In this study we aimed to test whether suggested DSM-5 criteria for Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) share a similar latent structure to formally recognised addiction. Methods: We used latent class analysis on a dichotomous measure of IGD. The data was collected from a convenient general population sample (500) and a targeted gaming forum...

Impulsivity is an individual difference in decision-making that is a risk factor for a number of health concerns including addiction and obesity. Although impulsivity has a large heritable component, the health concerns associated with impulsivity are not uniformly distributed across society. For example, people from poorer backgrounds are more lik...

In-play betting involves making multiple bets during a sporting event and is an increasingly popular form of gambling. Behavioural analysis of large datasets of in-play betting may aid in the prediction of at-risk patterns of gambling. However, datasets may contain significant skew and outliers necessitating analytical approaches capable of examini...

Background: We aimed to test whether suggested DSM-5 criteria for Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) share a similar latent structure to formally recognised addiction. Methods: To do this we used latent class analysis on a dichotomous measure of IGD. The data was collected from a convenient general population sample (500) and a targeted gaming forum sa...

We report the results of a pre-registered analysis of data from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging that was designed to test the hypothesis that economic scarcity is associated with individual differences in decision-making. We tested this hypothesis by comparing time preferences for different socio-economic groups and in geographical areas ra...

Background Here we present a systematic review of the existing research into gambling harms, in order to determine whether there are differences in the presentation of these across demographic groups such as age, gender, culture, and socioeconomic status, or gambling behaviour categories such as risk severity and participation frequency. Primary a...

A considerable proportion of financial decisions are made by agents acting on behalf of other people. Although people are more cautious for others when making medical decisions, this does not seem to be the case for economic decisions. However, studies with large amounts of money are particularly absent from the literature, which precludes a clear...

Background: Here we present a systematic review of the existing research into gambling harms, in order to determine whether there are differences in the presentation of these across demographic groups such as age, gender, culture, and socioeconomic status, or gambling behaviour categories such as risk severity and play frequency. Primary and Second...

Background: Here we present a systematic review of the existing research into gambling harms, in order to determine whether there are differences in the presentation of these across demographic groups such as age, gender, culture, and socioeconomic status, or gambling behaviour categories such as risk severity and play frequency. Primary and Second...

Background: Here we present a systematic review of the existing research into gambling harms, in order to determine whether there are differences in the presentation of these across demographic groups such as age, gender, culture, and socioeconomic status, or gambling behaviour categories such as risk severity and play frequency. Primary and Second...

Background: Here we present a systematic review of the existing research into gambling harms, in order to determine whether there are differences in the presentation of these across demographic groups such as age, gender, culture, and socioeconomic status, or gambling behaviour categories such as risk severity and participation frequency. Primary a...

Background: Here we present a systematic review of the existing research into gambling harms, in order to determine whether there are differences in the presentation of these across demographic groups such as age, gender, culture, and socioeconomic status, or gambling behaviour categories such as risk severity and participation frequency. Primary a...

In view of the growing interest regarding binge-watching (i.e., watching multiple episodes of television (TV) series in a single sitting) research, two measures were developed and validated to assess binge-watching involvement (“Binge-Watching Engagement and Symptoms Questionnaire”, BWESQ) and related motivations (“Watching TV Series Motives Questi...

Background: A large number of end-of-life decisions are made by a next-of-kin for a patient who has lost their decision-making capacity. This has given rise to investigations into how surrogates make these decisions. The experimental perspective has focused on examining how the decisions we make for others differ from our own, whereas the qualitat...

Objective: Here we present a systematic review of the existing research into gambling harms, in order to determine whether there are differences in the presentation of these across demographic groups such as age, gender, culture, and socioeconomic status, or gambling behaviour categories such as risk severity and play frequency. Primary and Seconda...

A considerable proportion of end-of-life decisions are made by the patient’s next-of-kin, who can be asked to follow the substituted judgment standard and decide based on the patient’s wishes. The question of whether these surrogate decision makers are actually able to do so has become an important issue. In this study, we examined how the likeliho...

Over a series of decisions between two or more probabilistically rewarded options, humans have a tendency to diversify their choices, even when this will lead to diminished overall reward. In the extreme case of probability matching, this tendency is expressed through allocation of choices in proportion to their likelihood of reward. Research sugge...

In view of the emerging psychological research on binge-watching (i.e., watching TV series episodes back-to-back), two assessment measures were developed and validated in a French-speaking population to evaluate TV series watching motives (Watching TV Series Motives Questionnaire) and binge-watching engagement and symptoms (Binge-Watching Engagemen...

Background Are we more risk-averse or risk-seeking when we make decisions on behalf of other people as opposed to ourselves? So far, findings have not been able to provide a clear and consistent answer. Method We propose a meta-analysis to assess whether self-other differences vary according to particular features of the decision. We reviewed 78 e...

Statistical differences between self and other decisions. (DOCX)

Characteristics and effect sizes of all studies. (DOCX)

Coding frame for methodological and theoretical moderators. (DOCX)

The ways in which the decisions we make for others differ from the ones we make for ourselves has received much attention in the literature, although less is known about their relationship to our predictions of the recipient’s preferences. The latter question is of particular importance given real-world occurrences of surrogate decision-making whic...

In the event that a patient has lost their decision-making capacity due to illness or injury, a surrogate is often appointed to do so on their behalf. Research has shown that people take less risk when making treatment decisions for other people than they do for themselves. This has been discussed as surrogates employing greater caution for others...

Smartphone users engage extensively with their devices, on an intermittent basis for short periods of time. These patterns of behaviour have the potential to make mobile gambling especially perseverative. This paper reports the first empirical study of mobile gambling in which a simulated gambling app was used to measure gambling behaviour in phase...

Given a repeated choice between two or more options with independent and identically distributed reward probabilities, overall pay-offs can be maximized by the exclusive selection of the option with the greatest likelihood of reward. The tendency to match response proportions to reward contingencies is suboptimal. Nevertheless, this behaviour is we...

In their position paper, Aarseth et al. (2016) bring to light several timely issues concerning the categorization of gaming disorder as a form of addiction and as a discrete mental disorder. In our commentary, we welcome their caution toward this move and their discussion of the equivocal scientific data in its support and the potential negative co...

Theoretical models suggest that gratitude is linked to increased prosociality. To date, however, there is a lack of a comprehensive quantitative synthesis of results to support this claim. In this review we aimed to 1) examine the overall strength of the association between gratitude and prosociality, and 2) to identify the theoretical and methodol...

The criteria used to determine a behavioral addiction should be based on an understanding of the underlying psychological mechanisms. This should include an analysis of whether the behavior itself has psychological features that might externally determine the individual’s behavior.

There is growing evidence that decisions made on behalf of other people differ from the decisions we make for ourselves because we are less affected by the subjective experience of their outcome. As a result, the decisions we make for other people can be more optimal. This experiment investigated surrogate decision making using a probability discou...

Analyses of disordered gambling assessment data have indicated that commonly used screens appear to measure latent categories. This stands in contrast to the oft-held assumption that problem gambling is at the extreme of a continuum. To explore this further, we report a series of latent class analyses of a number of prevalent problem gambling asses...

Autistic traits are widely thought to operate along a continuum. A taxometric analysis of Adult Autism Spectrum Quotient data was conducted to test this assumption, finding little support but identifying a high severity taxon. To understand this further, latent class and latent profile models were estimated that indicated the presence of six distin...

This manuscript overviews the behavioural (i.e. associative learning, conditioning) research in behavioural addictions, with reference to contemporary models of substance addiction and ongoing controversies in the behavioural addictions literature. The role of behaviour has been well explored in substance addictions and gambling but this focus is o...

Autistic traits are widely thought to operate along a continuum. A taxometric analysis of Adult Autism Spectrum Quotient data was conducted to test this assumption, finding little support but identifying a high severity taxon. To understand this further, latent class and latent profile models were estimated that indicated the presence of six distin...

This manuscript reviews the extant literature on key issues related to mobile gambling and considers whether the potential risks of harm emerging from this platform are driven by pre-existing comorbidities or by psychological processes unique to mobile gambling. We propose an account based on associative learning that suggests this form of gambling...

Mobile gambling is an emerging market in which there is evidence that some gamblers are introduced to gambling through their mobile device, and that mobile gambling does not ‘cannibalise’ participation with other forms of gambling. There is a concern that mobile gamblers face distinct risks from other forms of gambling, particularly for harmful beh...

This paper reports a series of analyses examining the predictors of gambling subtypes identified from a latent class analysis of problem gambling assessment data, pooled from four health and gambling surveys conducted in Britain between 2007 and 2012. Previous analyses have indicated that gambling assessments have a consistent three class structure...

Manipulating different behavioral characteristics of gambling games can potentially affect the extent to which individuals persevere at gambling, and their transition to problematic behaviors. This has potential impact for mobile gambling technologies and responsible gambling interventions. Two laboratory models pertinent to this are the partial re...

Decisions made on behalf of other people are sometimes more rational than those made for oneself. In this study we used a monetary gambling task to ask if the framing effect in decision-making is reduced in surrogate decision-making. Participants made a series of choices between a predetermined sure option and a risky gambling option of winning a p...

In everyday life, many of the decisions that we make are made on behalf of other people. A growing body of research suggests that we often, but not always, make different decisions on behalf of other people than the other person would choose. This is problematic in the practical case of legally designated surrogate decision makers, who may not meet...

To what extent are people able to make predictions about other people's preferences and values?We report two experiments that present a novel method assessing some of the basic processes in surrogate decision-making, namely surrogate-utility estimation. In each experiment participants formed dyads who were asked to assign utilities to health relate...

It is well documented that people would remunerate fair behaviours and penalize unfair behaviours. It is argued that individuals' reactions following the receipt of a gift depend on the perceived intentions of the donors. Fair intentions should prompt positive affect, like gratitude, triggering cooperative behaviours; while intended unfairness shou...

Abstract This study used eye-tracking to investigate the allocation of attention to multi-modal stimuli during an incidental learning situation, as well as its impact on subsequent explicit learning. Participants were exposed to foreign language (FL) auditory words on their own, in conjunction with written native language (NL) translations, or with...

Appendix S1: List of Experimental Words.

Prior research has reported incidental vocabulary acquisition with complete beginners in a foreign language (FL), within 8 exposures to auditory and written FL word forms presented with a picture depicting their meaning. However, important questions remain about whether acquisition occurs with fewer exposures to FL words in a multimodal situation a...

Aims: To test whether problem gambling is a categorical or dimensional disorder on the basis of two problem gambling assessments. This distinction discriminates between two different conceptualizations of problem gambling: one that problem gambling is defined by its addictive properties, the other that it is a continuum of harm. Method: Using Th...

The importance of unconscious autonomic activity vs. knowledge in influencing behavior on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) has been the subject of debate. The task's developers, Bechara and colleagues, have claimed that behavior on the IGT is influenced by somatic activity and that this activity precedes the emergence of knowledge about the task contin...

First language acquisition requires relatively little effort compared to foreign language acquisition and happens more naturally through informal learning. Informal exposure can also benefit foreign language learning, although evidence for this has been limited to speech perception and production. An important question is whether informal exposure...

We report the results of a human fMRI experiment investigating the influence of context upon value judgement. Trials were separated into high and low value blocks such that it is possible to investigate the effect of a change in surrounding trials upon the encoding of financial value. The ventral striatum was dependent upon "local context", with it...

The Barratt Impulsivity Scale (BIS) provides a transdiagnostic marker for a number of psychiatric conditions and drug abuse, but the precise psychological trait(s) tapped by this questionnaire remain obscure. To address this, 51 smokers completed in counterbalanced order the BIS, a delay discounting task and a Harvard game that measured choice betw...

People tend to prefer a smaller immediate reward to a larger but delayed reward. Although this discounting of future rewards is often associated with impulsivity, it is not necessarily irrational. Instead it has been suggested that it reflects the decision maker's greater interest in the 'me now' than the 'me in 10 years', such that the concern for...

An intrapersonal externality exists when an individual's decisions affect the outcomes of her future decisions. It can result in decreasing or increasing average returns to the rate of consumption, as occurs in addiction or exercise. Experimentation using the Harvard Game, which models intrapersonal externalities, has found differences in decision...

The butcher-on-the-bus is a rhetorical device or hypothetical phenomenon that is often used to illustrate how recognition decisions can be based on different memory processes (Mandler, 1980). The phenomenon describes a scenario in which a person is recognized but the recognition is accompanied by a sense of familiarity or knowing characterized by a...

Foreign language (FL) films with subtitles are becoming increasingly popular, and many European countries use subtitling as a cheaper alternative to dubbing. However, the extent to which people process subtitles under different subtitling conditions remains unclear. In this study, participants watched part of a film under standard (FL soundtrack an...

Delay reward discounting (DRD) measures the degree to which a person prefers smaller rewards soon or larger rewards later. People who smoke have been shown to have higher DRD. There are several ways of measuring DRD, and the method used might influence the association between smoking and DRD. The key differences are the order in which the items are...

The question of what processes are involved in the acquisition and representation of categories remains unresolved despite several decades of research. Studies using the well-known prototype distortion task (Posner and Keele in J Exp Psychol 77:353-363, 1968) delineate three candidate models. According to exemplar-based models, we memorize each ins...