Psych Of Add Behavior Final

Dan Ariely Ted Talk CITATION

"Self Control" uploaded by TEDxTalks, 18 April 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPQhj6ktYSo&feature=emb_logo

SELF CONTROL CITATION

"Self Control, Behavior" uploaded by khanacademymedicine, 10 October 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXdIdIjllEI&feature=emb_logo

sugar different in foods

eating a lot of sugar is rewarding because it kickstarts dopamine to feel pleasure

how many gambling addicts are there

two million , and 20 mill who its a habit and interferes with social and work life

where did the video take place, china )

suburb of Beijing

What does Wilson mean by saying that studies on porn don't have a control group.

if there are no control groups, we can assume the research is the same across all men, there are no men who did not use porn - boys smoking at age 10 - no group that didnt - can assume lung cancer is normal for all guys

How does Wilson say this relate to other addictions?

All addictions share these same brain change and the same molecular switch that kicks them in - Delta-FosB. Now scientists have used brain scans to measure these changes in drug addicts. Up-here these scans show a reduced pleasure response in drug addicts. These and several other changes have also been seen in gambling addicts food addicts, very recently in video game addicts and now in internet addicts.

How is this relevant to drug use and abuse?

This is relevant to drug use and abuse because in the moment it feels good, and we like the immediate reactions from the substances, but in the future we do not see the long term affects and how it may mess us up because we are living in the moment, no temptation because we do not live in the future

What is the short-term effect of binge eating?

Decreased energy; not being able to be as active as in the past, not being able to be as active as others around, also a decrease in efficiency due to the lack of energy. Having trouble sleeping; being tired all the time such as fatigue, oversleeping, or the complete opposite and not being able to sleep such as insomnia. Other physical signs and symptoms are restlessness, irritability, digestive disorders, and headaches

What is the clinical status of problematic Internet use in the U.S., China, and Korea.

internet addiction should be a disorder in the DSM or not, or if it is similar to existing disorders, but it is a serious addictive behavior that people are suffering from

List the eight diagnostic criteria for IAD recommended by Beard (2005).

(1) Is preoccupied with the Internet (thinks about previous online activity or anticipate next online session); (2) Needs to use the Internet with increased amounts of time in order to achieve satisfaction; (3) Has made unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop Internet use; (4) Is restless, moody, depressed, or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop Internet use; (5) Has stayed online longer than originally intended. Additionally, at least one of the following must be present: (6) Has jeopardized or risked the loss of a significant relationship, job, educational or career opportunity because of the Internet; (7) Has lied to family members, therapist, or others to conceal the extent of involvement with the Internet; (8) Uses the Internet as a way of escaping from problems or of relieving a dysphoric mood (e.g., feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, depression)

What are the two main effects of playing video games on vision?

- vision is better than those who do not play The first way is that they're actually able to resolve small detail in the context of clutter, and though that means being able to read the fine print on a prescription rather than using magnifier glasses, you can actually do it with just your eyesight. The other way that they are better is actually being able to resolve different levels of gray. Imagine you're driving in a fog. That makes a difference between seeing the car in front of you and avoiding the accident, or getting into an accident. So we're actually leveraging that work to develop games for patients with low vision, and to have an impact on retraining their brain to see better. Clearly, when it comes to action video games, screen time doesn't make your eyesight worse.

average gammer age

33 years old

food addiction

A food addiction or eating addiction is a behavioral addiction that is characterized by the compulsive consumption of palatable (e.g., high fat and high sugar) foods which markedly activate the reward system in humans and other animals despite adverse consequences

Leptin

A hormone produced by adipose (fat) cells that acts as a satiety factor in regulating appetite.

how effective are the programs

A lot of time and money has been spent implementing these programs, and they certainly have good intentions, but over 20 years of evaluation into these programs have shown that these programs are not effective. Individuals who participate in these programs are just as likely to use substances as those who do not participate. In fact, some studies have shown that these programs might actually be counterproductive. That sometimes there's actually a higher rate of substance abuse among individuals who participate in these programs. And if there is any effectiveness, that effectiveness is very limited, and it only works for a short period after the intervention. It doesn't usually have an effect in the long-term. And I've mentioned all three possible conclusions here, and I don't mean to confuse you. So just to be clear, while there are some studies that show increased or decreased drug use in individuals who participate in these programs, a vast majority of them show no difference.

How do age, sex, and impulsivity relate to compulsive gambling?

Although most people who play cards or wager never develop a gambling problem, certain factors are more often associated with compulsive gambling: Mental health disorders. People who gamble compulsively often have substance abuse problems, personality disorders, depression or anxiety. Compulsive gambling may also be associated with bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Age. Compulsive gambling is more common in younger and middle-aged people. Gambling during childhood or the teenage years increases the risk of developing compulsive gambling. However, compulsive gambling in the older adult population can also be a problem. Sex. Compulsive gambling is more common in men than women. Women who gamble typically start later in life and may become addicted more quickly. But gambling patterns among men and women have become increasingly similar. Family or friend influence. If your family members or friends have a gambling problem, the chances are greater that you will, too. Medications used to treat Parkinson's disease and restless legs syndrome. Drugs called dopamine agonists have a rare side effect that may result in compulsive behaviors, including gambling, in some people. Certain personality characteristics. Being highly competitive, a workaholic, impulsive, restless or easily bored may increase your risk of compulsive gambling.

gambling prevention

Although there is no proven way to prevent a gambling problem, educational programs that target individuals and groups at increased risk may be helpful. If you have risk factors for compulsive gambling, consider avoiding gambling in any form, people who gamble and places where gambling occurs. Get treatment at the earliest sign of a problem to help prevent gambling from becoming worse.

how effective are scare tactics

And this reminds me of another point that I wanted to bring up about content. And that's that programs that rely on scare tactics are generally ineffective. And we don't totally understand why this is. It might be that even though kids and teens and preteens understand the messages of these programs, they may not think that the consequences apply to them. And so while they might be receptive to scare tactics in the short-term, it isn't going to affect their long-term decision-making

Why is new porn more addictive that earlier porn (Coolidge effect)?

Because people can watch porn and see 10 attractive women at once compared to before,

What is the choice presented to the children in the marshmallow experiment?

Choice: to eat the marshmallow or wait and receive two marshmallows

mental health and IAD

Many researchers and clinicians have noted that a variety of mental disorders co-occur with IAD. There is debate about which came first, the addiction or the co-occurringdisorder. The study by Dong et al. had at least the potential to clarify this question, reporting that higher scores for depression, anxiety, hostility, interpersonal sensitivity, and psychoticism were consequences of IAD. But due to the limitations of the study further research is necessary.

negative outcomes of gambling

Compulsive gambling canhave profound and long-lasting consequences for your life, such as: Relationship problems Financial problems, including bankruptcy Legal problems or imprisonment Poor work performance or job loss Poor general healthSuicide, suicide attempts or suicidal thoughts

How does Delta-FosB affect the brain? Which brain changes are induced?

Delta kicks in dopamine, and start in the brain's reward system, alter the brain and brings in the the cycle of binging and craving everyday pleasure does not satisfy a porn addict, hyper-reactive to porn, everything in their life is boring except porn, frontal cortex changes,

symptoms of food addiction

Hiding consumption is an emotional indicator of other symptoms that could be a result of having a food addiction. Hiding consumption of food includes eating in secret; late at night while everybody else is asleep, in the car, and hiding certain foods until ready to consume in private. Other signs of hiding consumption are avoiding social interactions to eat the specific foods that are craved. Other emotional indicators are inner guilt; which includes making up excuses to why the palatable food would be beneficial to consume, and then feeling guilty about it shortly after consuming

Correlation does not equal causation

Just because individuals have the tendency to follow a certain path for drug use doesn't mean that one causes the other. It could be that there's a third factor that's more important.

medication to improve addiction/ and psychotherapy

Medications used to treat substance addictions have proved much more effective. Opioid antagonists, such as naltrexone, indirectly inhibit brain cells from producing dopamine, thereby reducing cravings.Dozens of studies confirm that another effective treatment for addiction is cognitive-behavior therapy, which teaches people to resist unwanted thoughts and habits. Gambling addicts may, for example, learn to confront irrational beliefs, namely the notion that a string of losses or a near miss—such as two out of three cherries on a slot machine—signals an imminent win.

Describe the mental rotation task? What is the effect of video gaming training on the task, and how long does the effect lasts?

Mental rotation is a task where I'm going to ask you, and again you're going to do the task, to look at this shape. Study it, it's a target shape, and I'm going to present to you four different shapes. One of these four different shapes is actually a rotated version of this shape We then force them to play 10 hours of action games. They don't play 10 hours of action games in a row. They do distributed practice, so little shots of 40 minutes several days over a period of two weeks. Then, once they are done with the training, they come back a few days later and they are tested again on a similar type of mental rotation task. So this is work from a colleague in Toronto. What they showed is that, initially, you know, subjects perform where they are expected to perform given their age. After two weeks of training on action video games, they actually perform better, and the improvement is still there five months after having done the training. That's really, really important. Why? Because I told you we want to use these games for education or for rehabilitation. We need to have effects that are going to be long-lasting.

Name five frequent consequences of obesity.

Obesity has been attributed to eating behavior or fast food, personality issues, depression, addiction and genetics. One proposed explanation of epidemic obesity is food addiction.

why do prevention programs fail

One reason might be that these programs are targeting kids who are just too young to really understand these messages. And there are a large number of these programs that focus on kids before they reach their teenage years. Maybe it's really easy for them to say that they will say no to drugs before they can really understand the pressures and social implications that can surround that decision. But at the same time, there are also programs that focus on individuals in their teenage years, and it's possible that teens might be too old for these messages. Maybe kids in this age range have already learned about substance use from their peers, and so they can't be inoculated against drug use. And as you might have noticed, these two things kind of contradict each other, so what really might be driving this is content. It might be the case that information that works well with younger kids doesn't work for older ones, and vice versa. There are probably some messages that we can give teens that would be meaningless to elementary school students. And so the key here might be finding the right balance of information. And maybe these programs don't have that balance figured out yet.

what is most effective in drug programs

Programs that use peers or older adolescents to teach drug prevention programs might be mildly more effective than programs that use adults. Although I will say that this is not supported by all studies. Because in general it's less about who teaches and more about what is taught. Programs that focus on developing social skills more broadly as well as teaching things like self-control and stress management have had some success. And that doesn't mean that programs shouldn't include factual information about substances or include messages about self-esteem and peer pressure. It just means that these things should be presented alongside other content.

Define "sensitization" in relation to addictions.

Psychological dependence has also been observed with the occurrence of withdrawal symptoms when consumption of these foods stops by replacement with foods low in sugar and fat. Because this addictive behavior is not biological, one cannot develop a trait that codes for an eating disorder,

main cause of internet use

loneliness, look at the internet for companions, know nothing about human beings but know the internet inside and out

areas of the brain affected by gaming

So one part is the parietal cortex which is very well known to control the orientation of attention. The other one is the frontal lobe, which controls how we sustain attention, and another one is the anterior cingulate, which controls how we allocate and regulate attention and resolve conflict. Now, when we do brain imaging, we find that all three of these networks are actually much more efficient in people that play action games.

Two thoughts from the talk

So the two thoughts I want to leave with you is: How do we design a world to help us overcome our temptation and how do we do it without obstructing too much with our human freedom and right

What happens to ΔFosB expression after consuming high fat and sugar foods?

Sugary and high-fat food have both been shown to increase the expression of ΔFosB, an addiction biomarker, in the D1-type medium spiny neurons of the nucleus accumbens; however, there is very little research on the synaptic plasticity from compulsive food consumption, a phenomenon which is known to be caused by ΔFosB overexpression

gambling symptoms

SymptomsSigns and symptoms of compulsive gambling (gambling disorder) include: Being preoccupied with gambling, such as constantly planning how to get more gambling money Needing to gamble with increasing amounts of money to get the same thrillTrying to control, cut back or stop gambling, without success Feeling restless or irritable when you try to cut down on gambling Gambling to escape problems or relieve feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety or depression Trying to get back lost money by gambling more (chasing losses) Lying to family members or others to hide the extent of your gambling Jeopardizing or losing important relationships, a job, or school orwork opportunities because of gambling Resorting to theft or fraud to get gambling money Asking others to bail you out of financial trouble because you gambled money away

What three aspects do drug abuse prevention programs generally emphasize?

The first is factual information about drugs. And this information is usually followed by stories of bad things that happened to people who used these substances, and they also typically include training that aims at boosting children's self-esteem with the goal of helping them resist peer pressure that might lead them to use drugs later on.

What can happen if you completely abstain from something you really like?

make us want it more, ton of work and mental effort

how does drug use prevention lead to more drug use

The studies that show that participants in these programs use substances more than non-participants. In this case it's possible that participating in these programs might lead students to think that substance use is actually more popular than it really is. And by accidentally transmitting this message, it might actually make these students more likely to use drugs. It's also possible that by telling students about drugs, by making them aware of them and by giving them general knowledge about them, it might lead them to be more curious about some of the drugs that they learn about.

what happens when sugar touches the tongue

The sugars it contains activate the sweet-taste receptors, part of the taste buds on the tongue These receptors send a signal up to the brain stem, and from there, it forks off into many areas of the forebrain, one of which is the cerebral cortex Different sections of the cerebral cortex process different tastes: bitter, salty, umami, and, in our case, sweet. From here, the signal activates the brain's reward system. This reward system is a series of electrical and chemical pathways across several different regions of the brain.

biological predispositions

There is increasing evidence that there can be a genetic predisposition to addictive behaviors. The theory is that individuals with this predisposition do not have an adequate number of dopamine receptors or have an insufficient amount of serotonin/dopamine, thereby having difficulty experiencing normal levels of pleasure in activities that most people would find rewarding. To increase pleasure, these individuals are more likely to seek greater than average engagement in behaviors that stimulate an increase in dopamine, effectively giving them more reward but placing them at higher risk for addiction.

What issue needs to be solved to make video games useful in the treatment or prevention of health conditions?

Well, we're working on it, but here is a challenge. There are brain scientists like me that are beginning to understand what are the good ingredients in games to promote positive effects, and that's what I'm going to call the broccoli side of the equation. There is an entertainment software industry which is extremely deft at coming up with appealing products that you can't resist. That's the chocolate side of the equation. The issue is we need to put the two together, and it's a little bit like with food. Who really wants to eat chocolate-covered broccoli? None of you. And you probably have had that feeling, right, picking up an education game and sort of feeling, hmm, you know, it's not really fun, it's not really engaging. So what we need is really a new brand of chocolate, a brand of chocolate that is irresistible, that you really want to play, but that has all the ingredients, the good ingredients that are extracted from the broccoli that you can't recognize but are still working on your brains. And we're working on it, but it takes brain scientists to come and to get together, people that work in the entertainment software industry, and publishers, so these are not people that usually meet every day, but it's actually doable, and we are on the right track

How is reinforcement/reward incorporated into computer apps?

What is so rewarding about Internet and video game use that it could become an addiction? The theory is that digital technology users experience multiple layers of reward when they use various computer applications. The Internet functions on a variable ratio reinforcement schedule (VRRS), as does gambling. Whatever the application (general surfing, pornography, chat rooms, message boards, social networking sites, video games, email, texting, cloud applications and games, etc.), these activities support unpredictable and variable reward structures. The reward experienced is intensified when combined with mood enhancing/stimulating content. Examples of this would be pornography (sexual stimulation), video games (e.g. various social rewards, identification with a hero, immersive graphics), dating sites (romantic fantasy), online poker (financial) and special interest chat rooms or message boards (sense of belonging)

Compare the behaviors associated with viewing porn with those involved in real sexual relationships.

When a guy gets a real mate do not know the effects of internet porn could not find any male who was not using porn

What effects does video gaming and multimedia consumption have on the speed it take individuals to switch from one task to another?

When we do that, we actually find that people that play a lot of action games are really, really good. They switch really fast, very swiftly. They pay a very small cost.

video games on attention

You're getting better, but it's hard. Why is it hard? Because I introduced a conflict between the word itself and its color. How good your attention is determines actually how fast you resolve that conflict, so the young guys here at the top of their game probably, like, did a little better than some of us that are older. What we can show is that when you do this kind of task with people that play a lot of action games, they actually resolve the conflict faster. So clearly playing those action games doesn't lead to attention problems. Actually, those action video game players have many other advantages in terms of attention, and one aspect of attention which is also improved for the better is our ability to track objects around in the world.

gateway drug

a drug whose use increases the risk of the subsequent use of more harmful drugs it says that some substances act as gateway drugs, meaning that their use can lead to the use of other, more dangerous substances.

Overall, what proportion of people who use cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana end up using harder drugs

a very small percentage

how many states is gambling legalized

almost every state, expect Hawaii and Utah offer some form of legalized gambling

why do casinos want to stop addicts

because they may bring in revenue, but they may also have debt that they cannot pay

we are wonderful people but what is the problem with that

because we cannot live in the future, we always live in the present

purpose of the facility

bootcamp style facility to help young men who are addicted to the internet

How does the government attempt to prevent drug use and abuse?

by making certain substances illegal. And by doing so, they are attempting to limit the availability of those substances, which is a form of prevention. The government also tries to prevent use and abuse by punishing those who use and sell substances. And the idea here of course is that people don't like to be punished, so they're not going to use and abuse substances if that leads to punishment

too much sugar?

can go into overdrive, overconsumption addictive effects on the brain

common signs of compulsive eating

compulsive overeaters include eating alone, consuming food quickly, and gaining weight rapidly, and eating to the point of feeling sick to the stomach. Other signs include significantly decreased mobility and the withdrawal from activities due to weight gain. Emotional indicators can include feelings of guilt, a sense of loss of control, depression and mood swings

3 long term outcomes of waiting for a marshmallow

confident self reliant higher SAT scores higher levels of education social skills less stress better relationships lower drug use problems

binge eating

eating an unhealthy amount of food while feeling that one's sense of control has been lost. At first, the food addiction comes in the form of cravings, so a person is naturally caught unaware when suddenly they find that they cannot cope without the craving. The person's behavior then begins to shift when the need for more food is not met, in that when the urge is met, binge eating, obesity and bulimia can result as a consequence

eating same food less pleasurable

eating the same food days in a row, low dopamine levels , less leveling , brain pays attention to new tastes because: - detect food thats gone bad - more variety, more nutrients for our diets

WHY DO men give up on porn

erectile dysfunction ; killing young men's performances

how many people tried gambling

every 4 of 5 Americans have tried

strategies for self control

exercise time management and study skills change the environment operant conditioning

compulsive gambling name

gambling disorder

research regarding gambling addiction

gambling is a true addiction

gambling

gambling means that you are willing to risk somethingyou value in the hope of getting something of even greater value.

Denver Drug

heroin addict, come to the organization and write a self incriminating letter about your drug habits, and address it to the person u fear most of finding out your drug habits, the organization takes it and holds it in trust, they then check blood pressure for heroin, and if there was any in the bloodstream they would mail the letter, control temptation from something that would change our behavior in the future

Why was taking hepatitis medication a self-control challenge for Dan?

his injections were essence self control because he had to maintain his three shots throughout the specific time period, and if he did he might not have liver issues down the road; however, if he did take the medicine he would immediately feel really sick and bad. over focus on the present and sacrifice the future.

texting and driving example

how much do you want to live how much do you not want to kill other people how important is this text message that I have to send, the ring of our phones overtake us and make us do a bad thing as a consequence, never get to live in the future, we always live in the future

CBT to treat IAD

n her study, Young used CBT to treat 114 clients suffering from IAD and found that participants were better able to manage their presenting problems post-treatment, showing improved motivation to stop abusing the Internet, improved ability to control their computer use, improved ability to function in offline relationships, improved ability to abstain from sexually explicit online material, improved ability to engage in offline activities, and improved ability to achieve sobriety from problematic applications. Cao, Su and Gao investigated the effect of group CBT on 29 middle school students with IAD and found that IAD scores of the experimental group were lower than of the control group after treatment. The authors also reported improvement in psychological function. Thirty-eight adolescents with IAD were treated with CBT designed particularly for addicted adolescents by Li and Dai. They found that CBT has good effects on the adolescents with IAD (CIAS scores in the therapy group were significant lower than that in the control group). In the experimental group the scores of depression, anxiety, compulsiveness, self-blame, illusion, and retreat were significantly decreased after treatment. Zhu, Jin, and Zhong compared CBT and electro acupuncture (EA) plus CBT assigning forty-seven patients with IAD to one of the two groups respectively. The authors found that CBT alone or combined with EA can significantly reduce the score of IAD and anxiety on a self-rating scale and improve self-conscious health status in patients with IAD, but the effect obtained by the combined therapy was better.

is treatment there voluntary

no, the parents drop them off and they are dragged in , tricked into going

why do older men recover easier

older men did not start on today's internet porn, did not have erectile dysfunction until new internet porn came out. younger people are more addicted because of the fast-paced internet, and their dopamine levels are at their peak which causes addiction

tolerance in food

overeat so they can get the dopamine that they're missing, eat more to get the same effect, pull pleasure away, no dopamine and fewer receptors, gives symptoms of withdrawal

How does food addiction affect social relations?

people rather eat than go to social interactions, avoid contact to eat

What is the estimated prevalence of IAD in the U.S. and Europe.

report that surveys in the United States and Europe have indicated prevalence rates varying between 1.5% and 8.2%. Other reports place the rates between 6% and 18.5%

ego depletion

self control is a limited resource because if you use it all up, you will not have a lot of it in the future.

gateway theory vs continuum theory

so this is very different from the gateway theory, which holds that using one substance can lead to the use of another substance, because in this model, each substance is considered individually. And because of this, this continuum model winds up being a lot more complicated than the gateway model. But because it has this added complexity, it might be a more realistic way of looking at how people move from use to abuse.

nucleus accumbens

structure located in the brainstem and part of the dopaminergic reward pathway; releases dopamine in response to many drugs contributing to addictive behavior

How is the brain believed to respond to internet use that resembles other addictions?

t is known that addictions activate a combination of sites in the brain associated with pleasure, known together as the "reward center" or "pleasure pathway" of the brain. When activated, dopamine release is increased, along with opiates and other neurochemicals. Over time, the associated receptors may be affected, producing tolerance or the need for increasing stimulation of the reward center to produce a "high" and the subsequent characteristic behavior patterns needed to avoid withdrawal. Internet use may also lead specifically to dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens, one of the reward structures of the brain specifically involved in other addictions. An example of the rewarding nature of digital technology use may be captured in the following statement by a 21 year-old male in treatment for IAD: "I feel technology has brought so much joy into my life. No other activity relaxes me or stimulates me like technology. However, when depression hits, I tend to use technology as a way of retreating and isolating."

What happens to the value we assign to something that is far in the future (like the effects of global warming)?

taking the environment and changing it and getting people to behave in the right way because of the wrong reasons, nobody is going to care about global warming immediately because it is not affecting anybody at this space and time, so nobody is excited to deal with it, they are delayed rewards that we are not designed to care about

what is self control

the ability to control impulses and delay short-term gratification for greater long-term rewards

Coolidge effect

the fact that a copulating male who becomes incapable of continuing to copulate with one sex partner can often recommence copulating with a new sex partner

how does this imply prevention

the implication of all of this seems to be that if you can prevent people, specifically teens and pre-teens, from experimenting with smoking and drinking and marijuana use, then they will never move onto harder drugs.

sugar consumption similar to consuming drugs

the pleasure reward system in nucleus accumbens same factors, and receptors, as all of these other addictive compounds

gambling, and drug abuse are connected

the reward system links various scattered brain regions involved in memory, movement, pleasure and motivation. When we engage in an activity that keeps us alive or helps us pass on our genes, neurons in the reward system squirt out a chemical messenger called dopamine, giving us a little wave of satisfaction and encouraging us to make a habit of enjoying hearty meals and romps in the sack. When stimulated by amphetamine, cocaine or other addictive drugs, the reward system disperses up to 10 times more dopamine than usual. Continuous use of such drugs robs them of their power to induce euphoria. Addictive substances keep the brain so awash in dopamine that it eventually adapts by producing less of the molecule and becoming less responsive to its effects. As a consequence, addicts build up a tolerance to a drug, needing larger and larger amounts to get high. In severe addiction, people also go through withdrawal—they feel physically ill, cannot sleep and shake uncontrollably—if their brain is deprived of a dopamine-stimulating substance for too long. At the same time, neural pathways connecting the reward circuit to the prefrontal cortex weaken. Restingjust above and behind the eyes, the prefrontal cortex helps people tame impulses. In other words, the more an addict uses a drug, the harder it becomes to stop.Research to date shows that pathological gamblers and drug addicts share many of the same genetic predispositions for impulsivity and reward seeking. Just as substance addicts require increasingly strong hits to get high, compulsive gamblers pursue ever riskier ventures. Likewise, both drug addicts and problem gamblers endure symptoms of withdrawalwhen separated from the chemical or thrill they desire. And a few studies suggest that some people are especially vulnerable to both drug addiction and compulsive gambling because their reward circuitry is inherently underactive—which may partially explain why they seek big thrills in the first place. Even more compelling, neuroscientists have learned that drugs and gambling alter many of the same brain circuits in similar ways. These insights come from studies of blood flow and electrical activity in people's brains as they complete various tasks on computers that either mimic casino games or test their impulse control. In some experiments, virtual cards selected from different decks earn or lose a player money; other tasks challenge someone to respond quickly to certain images that flash on a screen but not to react to others. A 2005 German study using such a card game suggests problem gamblers—like drug addicts—have lost sensitivity to their high: when winning, subjects had lower than typical electricalactivity in a key region of the brain's reward system. In a 2003 study at Yale University and a 2012 study at the University of Amsterdam, pathological gamblers taking tests that measured their impulsivity had unusually low levels of electrical activity in prefrontal brain regions that help people assess risks and suppress instincts. Drug addicts also often have a listless prefrontal cortex.

why do gamblers not listen to family/friends

they are denial of the problem

Pigeon study

they are forced into doing something that they do not like so that they're not tempted in the future to do something bad

continuum theory of drug use

this theory states that a change in the pattern of substance use is what moves someone from use to abuse. So this could be a change in the amount of the substance used, or in the availability of the substance, or in the consequences of substance use. And this theory also holds that there is no one direct pattern from substance use to substance abuse. Instead, there are many twists and turns along the way.

purpose of the video

video games are a life changing thing, they are here to stay, amazing impact, but how can we leverage that power

how did he deal with unpleasant of his medication

watching movies

when is a desire a temptation

when the desire conflicts with our values or long term goals

What is argued in the debate to characterize excessive Internet use?

whether it is an existing disorder or a whole other entity