IntroductionAlthough gamblers and investors have been found to exhibit many common traits, no existing studies associate retail investors with an explicit addictive behavior, or account for the degree of addiction's influence on investors’ and gamblers’ risk attitude and risk perception.ObjectivesThe study explores whether trading in the stock market is a potentially compulsive form of behavior. Furthermore, it explores the psychological risk perception versus economic risk taking of individuals engaged in active stock market trading and those in gambling, for various degrees of addiction.AimThe study aims to develop the profile of an addicted retail investor across demographic and risk variables.MethodsThe South Oaks Gambling Screen (Lesieur & Blume, 1987), adapted for stock market trading, the financial part of the Risk Taking Scale and Risk Perception Scale (Weber et al., 2002) and a demographics questionnaire was completed by a sample (582 responses) of active investors, gamblers and a control group in Greece at three distinctive time periods.ResultsResults suggest that retail trading in the stock market exhibits significant incidence of compulsive behavior (11.2%) across diverse stock market environments, probably more for females. The decision to become an active investor or gambler entails greater risk friendliness. Pathologically addicted retail investors underestimate the risk of trading in the stock market. Demographics also play a critical role in risk perception and risk underestimation.ConclusionThere is an apparent addiction problem between active retail investors that should be taken into account. Psychotherapeutic interventions are discussed.
AimTo estimate the percentage and risk factors of Internet addiction (IA) at Greek Internet cafés.MethodsWe used a questionnaire including questions on demographics, Internet use duration, Internet applications and sites visited, degree of Internet use influence on daily schedule and social relations, psychosocial characteristics of users and Young's IA Test (48 items overall). Our randomly selected sample included Internet café users in Athens and other big Greek cities. The sample size was 686 people (74%/26% M/F) and 12%, 70% and 18% were between 7–14, 15–25 and 26–45 years old respectively.ResultsCronbach's alpha ranged from 0.79 to 0.90 for all 6 sections of our questionnaire. The prevalence of IA among Internet café visitors was 20.8% (16.0% men, 4.8% women). IA was significantly associated to Internet use duration per day, Internet Café visits number per week, number of hours playing at Internet cafés per visit, duration playing violent games (e.g. Counter-Strike, Quake, Assassin), duration visiting Facebook and MySpace, and degree of Internet use influence on daily schedule, social relations and psychological attitudes (p < 0.01). Binary logistic regression showed that significant predictive factors of IA were the length of time playing violent games [ORCounter-Strike = 23.6 (95% CI 1.2 − 40.1); ORAssassin = 10.9 (95% CI 1.5 − 43.2)], visiting Facebook [OR = 41.9 (95% CI 19.7 − 87.5)], and deterioration of social relations (p = 0.009).ConclusionIA is frequent in Internet cafés, possibly due to an online gaming addiction affecting multiple aspects of a person's life.
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