Funded Research

Special Initiative: “A Randomized Controlled Trial of Personalized Normative Feedback for Problem Gambling College Students”

Principal Investigator: Clayton Neighbors, PhD, University of Houston
Awarded $171,561 in 2011

Aim: Develop and test an online screening and brief intervention (SBI) aimed at reducing gambling-related problems among college students using Personalized Normative Feedback (PNF), an approach successfully employed to reduce rates of drinking on campus by showing students their misperceptions of student drinking behavior.

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Foster, D. W., Neighbors, C., Rodriguez, L. M., Lazorwitz, B., & Gonzales, R. (2014). Self-identification as a moderator of the relationship between gambling-related perceived norms and gambling behavior. Journal of Gambling Studies, 30(1), 125-140.

Neighbors, C., Rodriguez, L. M., Rinker, D. V., Gonzales, R. G., Agana, M., Tackett, J. L., & Foster, D. W. (2015). Efficacy of personalized normative feedback as a brief intervention for college student gambling: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 83(3), 500.

Rinker, D. V., Rodriguez, L. M., Krieger, H., Tackett, J. L., & Neighbors, C. (2015). Racial and Ethnic Differences in Problem Gambling among College Students. Journal of Gambling Studies, 1-10.

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​Large Grant: “Assessing the Contribution of Reinforcement-learning Deficits in Pathological Gamblers”

Principal Investigator: John O’Doherty, PhD, California Institute of Technology
Awarded $172,500 in 2011

Aim: Study patterns of neural activity while disordered gamblers – and a comparison group of recreational gamblers – perform simple tasks in which they learn to make choices in order to obtain monetary gains and avoid losses with hopes of learning what neurological factors are involved in responses to rewarding and punishing events among people with gambling problems.

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​Large Grant: “Social Network Analysis of Pathological Gambling”

Principal Investigator: Adam Goodie, PhD, University of Georgia
Awarded $172,487 in 2011

Aim: Use a social network analysis to investigate the role of a gambler’s social network in his or her gambling-related pathology.

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Fortune, E. E., MacKillop, J., Miller, J. D., Campbell, W. K., Clifton, A. D., & Goodie, A. S. (2013). Social density of gambling and its association with gambling problems: An initial investigation. Journal of Gambling Studies, 29(2), 329-342.

Goodie, A.S., James MacKillop, Miller, J.D., Fortune, E.E., Maples, J., E. Lance, C.E., & Campbell, W.K. (2013). Evaluating the South Oaks Gambling Screen With DSM-IV and DSM-5 Criteria: Results From a Diverse Community Sample of Gamblers. Assessment, 20, 523-53.

Meisel, M. K., Clifton, A. D., MacKillop, J., Miller, J. D., Campbell, W. K., & Goodie, A. S. (2013). Egocentric social network analysis of pathological gambling. Addiction, 108(3), 584-591.

Meisel, M. K., & Goodie, A. S. (2014). Descriptive and injunctive social norms’ interactive role in gambling behavior. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 28(2), 592.

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Seed Grant: “Evaluating and Treating the Near-Miss Magnitude Effect in Underage Pathological Gambling”

Principal Investigator: Mark R. Dixon, PhD, Southern Illinois University
Awarded $34,500 in 2011

Aim: Test the hypothesis that exposure to “near-misses” that resemble large jackpot wins will produce greater activity in the dopamine reward system than near-misses that resemble small jackpot wins in an fMRI scanner; and evaluate the efficacy of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for reducing and altering disordered gambling behavior.

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Seed Grant: “Mirtazapine as a Pharmacological Intervention for Reducing Risk-Taking Behavior”

Principal Investigator: T. Celeste Napier, PhD, Rush University Medical Center
Awarded $28,750 in 2011

Aim: Identify the potential for repurposing the atypical antidepressant, mirtazapine, as a pharmacological intervention for reducing risk-behavior and/or relapse prevention of gambling disorders.

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