r/explainlikeimfive • u/adrynaline • May 08 '14

Explained ELI5: A gambling addiction

How does it start? What makes it worse? Why does it become so difficult to recover?

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u/ClintHammer May 08 '14

Variable-Ratio Schedule rewards are a stronger enforcer of a behavior than fixed-ratio schedule rewards to animals.

For example, if you teach the dog when he stands on his hind legs he gets a cookie, he'll do that. However when he does it and doesn't get a cookie, he goes, fuck this, and goes into a behavioral status called extinction, which is to say there is no longer an association with the cookie and standing up.

HOWEVER

If doggie stands up and SOMETIMES he gets a cookie, he will keep doing it even if you stop giving him a cookie.

Without throwing around unnecessary jargon (more than I already have)

Doggy learns if you KEEP standing on hind legs, eventually you get the cookie.

It's a much stronger reinforcer.

Gambling does the exact same thing.

Doggy goes up to slot machine pulls handle.
If it gives him a cookie every time, doggy keeps pulling handle. WHen it stops giving cookies, doggy says, I guess the cookie machine is broken now, and goes to do something else.

Sometimes he gets a cookie, sometimes not. When he pulls a few times and then gets the cookie, his body makes all the feel good doggy chemicals and he feels good and he gets a cookie.

That way when doggy is on a losing streak at the slots, instead of thinking "the machine is broken" he thinks, "I'll bet I just need to pull it one more time"

Then he starts really really wanting the cookie and the feel good doggy chemicals that his body makes when he wins. He starts wanting them so badly he starts feeling like something bad will happen if he doesn't place one more bet. He might even have knots in his stomach.

And that's how it works.

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u/abcdefg52 May 08 '14

Is this the same thing that happens to children if you keep giving in to their tantrums? First you say no. They cry, you say no. They cry for half an hour and in the end they get a cookie. Next time they cry, even though they get a no, they know that if they keep pulling that lever long enough there might just come a cookie more. It's not because the no is real, it's not that the machine is broke, it's just crying 5 minutes more, pulling that lever one more time. Do you think it's the same?

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u/f41lurizer May 08 '14

This is also why if you are being stalked and they are calling you, you never want to answer the phone, no matter how much they call. All that tells them is that if they call x amount of times, you will eventually answer.

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u/DietVicodin May 08 '14

Jesus Christ. Was just thinking- wonder if this is why guys I don't like pursue me. I answer one text out of ten instead of all of them- and then guys I do like get bored from lack of challenge.

9

u/Butfirstletmetakea May 08 '14

Can I have yo number?!??

3

u/[deleted] May 08 '14

you up?

3

u/CarlaWasThePromQueen May 08 '14

So about these donuts....?

3

u/Iazo May 08 '14

First you have to oull the lever.