Posts archived in The psychology of addiction
Those of you studying addiction might be interested in a new blog produced by Dr. Mark Griffiths, who is Professor of Gambling Studies at the Nottingham Trent University, and Director of the International Gaming Research Unit. He is internationally known for his work into gambling and gaming addictions, as well as writing about many different kinds of addiction.
His latest post is about whether people can become addicted to their jobs!
September 20, 2011 by Mike Cardwell.
New research suggests that media representation of smoking does influence teenagers to take up the habit. Dr Andrea Waylen and her team at Bristol University examined 360 of the top US box office films released between 2001 and 2005, including those (such as Bridget Jones Diary) that depicted smoking. They found that teenagers who watched films showing actors smoking were more likely to start smoking themselves. Even after controlling for social factors such as whether their parents or peers smoked, the researchers found a significant relationship between adolescent smoking and the number of films they had seen depicting smoking. This has led to the suggestion that in order to cut the numbers of young smokers, films containing scenes of people smoking should be given an 18 certificate.
Watch a discussion of the implications of this research on breakfast television here.
One of the explanations for addiction is that some individuals have a biological predisposition because they inherit a particular form of dopamine receptor gene (if you want an explanation of dopamine receptor genes see second paragraph). An interesting link has been made between these genes and evolution. The argument goes that the dispersal of our distant ancestors from Africa was related to riskiness. Individuals with a predisposition to be impulsive and risky rather than careful and reflective would be more likely to explore and find new, desirable environments
and would also cope better with new, challenging situations. Recent research has indeed found a link between specific dopamine genes and migration patterns i.e. migrants were more likely to have the version of the dopamine receptor gene that codes for risky behaviour. This shows that the gene has had an adaptive function, and may continue to do so.
Understanding dopamine receptor genes: There are different types of dopamine receptor such as D1R, D2R etc. (D for dopamine, R for receptor and the number denotes the type). The receptor is called D1R and the gene for that receptor is called DRD1, or D2R and DRD2 (which seems confusing to me, but there it is). For any gene there are different forms or allelles. So, for example, we all have a gene for D2R but the form of that gene differs. One person may have the G allele (which is associated with aggression) or the 1A allele (associated with addiction). In the study cited above (Matthews and Butler, 2011) the DRD4 gene was studied and the 7R and 2R versions were associated with risky behaviour whereas the 4R version was linked to being even tempered.
University students in north-east England have been taking part in a study to see the effects of binge drinking on memory. So what counted as binge drinking? Imbibing 6 units of alcohol in a drinking session twice a week or more was the criterion, and those students with other habits such as smoking and drug taking were screened out. Anxiety, age and depression had no effect on the results of both the binge drinkers and the control non-binging group.
The experimental task was to watch a 10-minute video clip of a Scarborough Read the rest of this entry »
There really are some beautiful charts and diagrams here…. truly ‘descriptive statistics’. I can’t really do any of it justice by cramming it into a tiny blog post, but it’s well worth having a look at this venn diagram about drugs, for example. Or this interactive representation of the link between stress and work.
A study from Decode Genetics in Reykjavik, published in Nature Genetics, suggests that four genes have now been identified – two linked to nicotine dependence and another two linked with nicotine metabolism. These findings, if valid, could lead to better understanding of addiction to smoking and how to treat this addiction.
Two great opportunities next autumn term if you are planning to teach either the Psychology of Addictive Behaviour or Anomalistic Psychology. Keynote Educational have organised Unit 4 INSET days – one features Mark Griffiths and the other features Richard Wiseman – both experts in the respective fields. Plus me (Cara Flanagan) talking about the research methods component and more general issues. See here for further INSET courses next year.
