Slot machine gambling and testosterone: Evidence for a “winner–loser” effect?

Abstract

The “winner–loser effect” refers to a phenomenon in testosterone research where the outcome of a social competition induces increases (wins) and/or decreases (losses) in testosterone levels. Here, we sought to test to what extent changes in testosterone occur in response to gambling behavior. More specifically, we hypothesized that the winner–loser effect would extend to slot machine gambling as a solitary (noncompetitive) gambling activity in players who “anthropomorphized” the slot machine, thus treating the machine as a human opponent. Male participants (n = 113) were recruited into a quasi-experimental design involving 15 min of authentic slot machine gambling, incentivized by a $10 cash bonus for participants who finished in profit. In addition to salivary measures of testosterone, salivary cortisol and self-reported anthropomorphization of the slot machine were tested as potential moderators. Contrary to predictions, winning and losing slot machine sessions did not exert significant differential effects on testosterone, and this pattern was not moderated by cortisol levels or slot machine anthropomorphization. Exploratory analyses tested relationships between subjective gambling experiences in the sessions and testosterone change. Higher positive affect and flow predicted greater testosterone declines from pre- to postgambling. The testosterone results add to a growing literature on the boundary conditions of the winner–loser effect and inform future studies on testosterone reactivity in relation to gambling and disordered gambling. The tendency to anthropomorphize slot machines is a neglected cognitive distortion in gambling that merits further study.

Hormonal responses in gambling versus alcohol abuse: A review of human studies

“…A study found that testosterone significantly increased during a one-on-one poker competition, while outcomes of the gambling competition did not affect testosterone levels (Steiner et al, 2010). A more recent study not only supports these findings, but also suggests that such effects could be extended into a slot machine gambling task in healthy male subjects (Ferrari et al, 2018). Taken together, these results clearly suggest that increased levels of testosterone in healthy subjects are related to higher risk taking or to higher impulsive propensity that relate to gambling behavior.…”

Investigating Flow State and Cardiac Pre-ejection Period During Electronic Gaming Machine Use

“…Participants were recruited to three experiments conducted between 2015 and 2018 (N 1 = 121, age M = 21.25, SD = 2.91; N 2 = 80, age M = 20.55, SD = 2.37; N 3 = 106, age M = 20.80, SD = 2.39, Figure 1). Primary analyses for Studies 1 and 2 are already published (Ferrari et al, 2018;Murch and Clark, 2019), without the measures of PEP. Study 3 has not been submitted for peer-reviewed publication (Murch, 2016).…”

Patterns of Disciplinary Involvement and Academic Collaboration in Gambling Research: A Co-Citation Analysis

“…As opportunities to gamble have increased over the last several years, accordingly the number of gambling studies has also grown (Dixon et al, 2015). Researchers from different disciplines, such as psychology (Ferrari et al, 2018;Hodgins et al, 2016), health (Williams & Volberg, 2014), and neuroscience (Yücel et al, 2017), have investigated gambling mainly from psychological and medical perspectives. A small number of gambling studies are produced by researchers from other academic disciplines, such as economics (Tymula & Whitehair, 2018) and business (Prentice & Zeng, 2018).…”