Effect of a Brief Meditation Intervention on Gambling Cravings and Rates of Delay Discounting
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Effect of a Brief Meditation Intervention on Gambling Cravings and Rates of Delay Discounting N. Will Shead 1
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& Anne Sophie Champod & Arthur MacDonald
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# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract
Meditation practice may be a useful intervention to reduce cravings and impulsivity among gamblers. Fifty-nine participants (90% female, mean age = 21.6 years) completed pre-intervention questionnaires including the Gambling Craving Scale (GACS) and a delay discounting task. Next, they were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: (1) audio-guided mindfulness-based meditation exercises or (2) audiobook recordings (control condition). After listening to 10-min daily audio recordings for a week, participants completed post-intervention measures. Contrary to hypothesis, gambling measures were not correlated with delay discounting. However, dispositional mindfulness was inversely related to a self-report measure of impulsivity and problem gambling severity. The hypothesized interaction between time (pre- vs. post-intervention) and condition (meditation exercises vs. audiobook recordings) was significant for gambling cravings among gamblers (n = 39), with those in the meditation condition showing a significant reduction in gambling cravings which highlights the potential benefits of meditation practice to reduce gambling cravings. Keywords Meditation . Mindfulness . Gambling cravings . Delay discounting The practice of contemporary mindfulness-based meditation has been examined as a potential therapeutic intervention for a wide range of clinical problems including eating disorders and addictions (Baer 2003). More recently, empirical studies have tested mindfulness-based meditation as an intervention for problem gambling (Griffiths et al. 2016; Maynard et al. 2015; McIntosh et al. 2016; Toneatto et al. 2014). For many of the problems being researched as potential targets of mindfulness-based meditation interventions, impulsivity is a key feature. For example, there is a strong link between disordered gambling and impulsivity which
* N. Will Shead [email protected]
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Department of Psychology, Mount Saint Vincent University, 166 Bedford Highway, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3M 2J6, Canada
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Department of Psychology, Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada
International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction
suggests that if mindfulness-based meditation is to be an effective intervention for problem gambling, it may do so by impacting impulsivity as a mechanism. However, the interrelationships between meditation, gambling and impulsivity are complex and not well understood. The current study provides an experimental test of the effects of brief meditation practice on gambling cravings and impulsive decision-making. Disordered gambling is characterized by social and psychological difficulties as a result of excessive and persistent gambling. Impulsivity appears to play a strong role in problem gambling behaviour (Leeman et al. 2014; Blanco et al. 2015). Impulsivity can be def
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