Based on tests of over 900 individuals beginning in toddlerhood, the study found that \u201cpeople who were rated at age three as being more restless, inattentive, oppositional, and moody than other three-year old children were twice as likely to grow up to have problems with gambling as adults three decades later<\/strong>,\u201d says psychologist Wendy S. Slutske of University of Missouri, who conducted the study with Terrie E. Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi, both of Duke University and University College\/London; and Richie Poulton of University of Otago, in Dunedin, New Zealand.<\/p>\n As the first study to establish a causal link between a so-called \u201cunder-controlled\u201d temperament in early childhood and later compulsive gambling<\/strong>, said Slutske, it answers a crucial question: \u201cHow early can we tell a person is at increased risk?\u201d<\/p>\n The study looked at individuals from the Dunedin (New Zealand) Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, a longitudinal study of one birth cohort. Based on behaviors observed during a 90-minute assessment, 1,037 three-year-olds were categorized as having one of five temperaments: under-controlled, inhibited, confident, reserved, or well adjusted. Those children who were categorized as having an under-controlled temperament were more restless, impulsive, and negative and were less able to regulate their emotions.<\/p>\n At ages 21 and 36, 939 of the study participants answered questions about gambling behavior. \u00a0At 21, 86 percent of the respondents had gambled, but only 13 percent in a \u201cdisordered\u201d way\u2014defined by such problems as a preoccupation with gambling; a need to wager more and more to get \u00a0the same enjoyment; getting into financial, personal, or work-related difficulties because of gambling; and difficulty in cutting down or quitting.\u00a0 By 32, only about 4 percent of the participants still gambled at that level.<\/p>\n Among the compulsive gamblers, men were more numerous than women, as were those with low childhood intelligence and socioeconomic status. But under-controlled temperament in toddlerhood remained a significant predictor of disordered gambling in adulthood, even after gender, intelligence, and socioeconomic status were taken into account<\/strong>.<\/p>\n It is important to keep in mind that the number of people who actually end up becoming compulsive gamblers is relatively small<\/strong>.\u00a0 But the findings, said Slutske, are still important given \u201cthe ever-increasing number of [gambling] temptations our world presents,\u201d such as the opportunities to place bets at home on the Internet at any time of day or night. Some vulnerable individuals may not be well-equipped to handle such temptations.<\/p>\n And the implications of the study may even go beyond gambling. \u201cIt fits into a larger story about how self-control in early childhood is related to important life outcomes in adulthood<\/strong>,\u201d said Slutske. New programs for boosting self-control\u2014even Sesame Street\u2019s segments on the importance of saving money and waiting until later for goodies\u2014might not only head off a painful future of compulsive gambling but also increase children\u2019s chances of academic success, financial security, and personal happiness when they grow up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Association for Psychological Science press release: Give me the child at 3 and I will give you the adult compulsive gambler. That is the striking finding of a… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,9],"tags":[21,45,52,73,32,218],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2537,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2536\/revisions\/2537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/Dice.jpg\" "\\"dice\\"")
Give me the child at 3 and I will give you the adult compulsive gambler. That is the striking finding of a new study in Psychological Science<\/em>, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science.<\/p>\n