Lit Outline

Hello All:
This week the task is to outline our lit review, so that is what I'm going to do. Just to review, my topic is on gambling, specifically people's behavior when influenced by time pressure, the near miss effect, and priming effects.

Outline
First I need to establish that gambling is a big issue, and I will do that by looking at the gambling industry.
Premise 1: Gambling is a widespread issue involving a lot of money and the industry is growing

• Kenneth Peak says, "Global gaming profits are expected to continue to grow at a rate of 9.2 percent per year and reach $182.8 billion in 2015"
• Joshua Kerlantzick says, "All but three states (Utah, Hawaii, and Tennessee) have some form of gambling, and about 125 million Americans take a flier on one or more of these offerings every year."
• William Eadington et al. discuss the growth of casinos on Native American land

Premise 2: The money involved in gambling is flowing out of the hands of people and into the hands of big corporations and casino owners

• Cite Kenneth Peak

Premise 3: Since gambling is so widespread and is rapidly growing, it is a worthwhile issue to look into
Premise 4: Consumer behavior is easily changed by arbitrary factors

• Cite Chapman et al. and Simonson et al. who both explain price anchoring and irrational behavior when money is involved

Premise 5: Gambling, like other consumer behaviors, is changed by a number of factors, which must be investigated

• Smith et al. discusses how gamblers' do not understand their motivation clearly and they do things that they deem bad when they see the behaviors in others

Subtopic 1: Time Pressure
Definition: Time pressure effects occur when people are forced to make a decision within a short amount of time
Premise 1: Time pressure effects are common in gambling, especially when the dealer says everyone make their final bets
Premise 2: Time pressure effects make people take more risks

• Young et al. found that when presented with a risky choice and a less risky one, not necessarily physically risky but also monetarily risky, people under time pressure made the riskier choice
• Dhar and Nowlis found similar things and their findings corroborate Young et. al's

Premise 3: Gambling is a risky activity
Premise 4: Time pressure effects are exacurbated when the decision-maker must process a lot of information.

• Suri and Monroe found that people under time pressure cannot fully process information when it is presented to them
• They also found that when a lot of information is given to a participant under time pressure, they make a more impulsive decision without using the information to help them reason because they cannot process it all in the time given.

Premise 5: Since there is a lot of information given in gambling (e.g. cards, amount of money to bet) in a short time, time pressure effects would be exacerbated in gamblers
Premise 6: Time pressure effects affect gamblers' decision making ability and make them more likely to make risky bets
Subtopic 2: Near Miss Effects
Definition: Near miss effects occur when players think they were close to winning (e.g. they were one number off or had 2/3 of the correct symbols on a slot machine) and/or getting good at a purely chance game even though they were just as far from winning as if they had been 10 numbers off (because the odds are all the same).
Premise 1: Near miss effects are exhibited widely in gambling across many different games

• Gunnarsson et al. explain the effect for black jack when they say, "The participants played 50 hands of blackjack and the results showed that when the participants’ score was closer to the dealer score they rated their hand higher."
• Mark Dixon explains the near miss effect by saying, "Furthermore, no loss, no matter how much it might "look like a win", is indicative of being close to a win. Each outcome from typical casino games such as slot machines, craps, or roulette is independent of the next."
• Dixon also explains that the effect is exhibited while playing roulette
• Luke Clark also adds, "Gamblers often interpret near- misses as evidence that they are mastering the game, and in this sense, near misses appear to foster an illusion of control"
• He observes a similar effect in slot machine play

Premise 2: The near miss effect increases betting and falsely increases confidence in gamblers

• Gunnarsson et al., Dixon, and Clark all support this statement with their research, much of which was just quoted.

Subtopic 3: Priming effects
Definition: Priming effects occur when people subconsciously perceive information and then base their actions on the information without even knowing they are doing it.
Premise 1: Priming Effects can occur with visual stimuli

• Bahrami et al. performed an experiment in which subjects were flashed an image, so they could not fully register what it was. Although subjects could not tell you what number they just saw, their thoughts subtlely reflected the number. This showed that people could pick up on signals subliminally when they are not focusing or aware of the stimuli.

Premise 2: Priming effects can occur with auditory stimuli

• Radel et al. explain that people can hear conversations without registering what they heard, but later they will make decisions based on what they subliminally heard. However, when asked why they did certain things, subjects did not know. This shows subliminal auditory priming in action

Premise 3: Priming affects decisions during gambling

• Bryan Gibson et al.'s study proves this. They flashed the winning image for slightly longer than the other images on a slot machine, and participants bet more on the slots the next turn and were more confident in their chances. But the participants did not know why they did this.

Now that I have established the effects of time pressure, near miss effects, and priming effects during gambling, I need to address the gap in the research. All three effects have been studied, but they have all been treated almost as if they were in a vacuum. Since nobody has looked into the relative strength of priming, near miss effects, and time pressure (meaning which one is most powerful), that is what I plan to do and that is the gap my research will cover.

Thanks for reading to the end. Here is a meme that has nothing to do with my research. (1075)