Explanatory style and gambling: how pessimists respond to losing wagers.

Do pessimists report worse outcomes after total hip arthroplasty?

BACKGROUND Seligman's theory of causal attribution predicts that patients with a pessimistic explanatory style will have less favorable health outcomes. We investigated this hypothesis using self-reported hip pain and hip function 2- years after total hip arthroplasty (THA). METHODS Most THA patients had completed the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) during their usual clini...

Horse Play Optimal Wagers and the Kelly Criterion

The Perceptual and Social Components of Metacognition

When deciding whether or not to bring an umbrella to work, your confidence will be influenced by the sky outside the window (direct evidence) as well as by, for example, whether or not people walking in the street have their own umbrella (indirect or contingent evidence). These 2 distinct aspects of decision confidence have not yet been assessed independently within the same framework. Here we ...

Why are gainers more risk seeking

The phenomenon that prior gains may increase people’s willingness to accept risky gambles is named as the house money effect (Thaler and Johnson, 1990). Many studies have shown that the “house money effect” is a robust phenomenon but few scholars explain the mechanism of it well. We suppose the reason for the house money effect is that the ante (starting amount) is from the prior gambling profi...

Gambling warning messages: The impact of winning and losing on message reception across a gambling session.

Gambling warning messages have been shown to lead to prevention and modification of risk-taking behaviors. Laboratory studies have shown messages can increase a player's knowledge about gambling specific risks, modify their gambling-related cognitive distortions, and even change play. In the present laboratory study, participants were randomly assigned to a winning or losing slot machine gambli...