We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
PSYCHOLOGICAL VARIABLES CHARACTERIZING DIFFERENT TYPES OF ADOLESCENT GAMBLERS: A DISCRIMINANT FUNCTION ANALYSIS.
- Authors
Pace, Ugo; Schimmenti, Adriano; Zappulla, Carla; Di Maggio, Rosanna
- Abstract
Objective: The study examined the effects of attachment attitudes, social support, and psychological and behavioral problems on pathological gambling among adolescents. Method: A total of 268 male adolescents from 15 to 17 years of age (M = 16.23, SD = .39) completed self-report measures on gambling behaviors, attachment styles, social support, and internalizing and externalizing problems. Results and Conclusions: At-risk and pathological gamblers reported lower level of social support and higher level of fearful attachment and internalizing problems than non-problematic gamblers. Results from a discriminant function analysis, in which two discriminant functions emerged, were consistent with contemporary perspectives on personality functioning: in fact, it resulted that the difference between non-gamblers and at-risk gamblers was better explained by a function named "self-in-relation", which included internalizing problems, fearful attachment, lack of security and low perceived support, whereas the difference between at-risk gamblers and pathological gamblers was better explained by a function named "self-definition", which included externalizing problems and preoccupied attachment. Therefore, findings of this study suggest that more severe gambling behaviors in adolescence are associated with needs for self-definition. This can have important implications for the assessment and treatment of adolescent gamblers.
- Subjects
ATTACHMENT behavior; SOCIAL support; COMPULSIVE gambling; GAMBLERS; COMPULSIVE behavior in adolescence
- Publication
Clinical Neuropsychiatry, 2013, Vol 10, Issue 6, p253
- ISSN
1724-4935
- Publication type
Article