|
NEW!
RG RESEARCH
Neural Pathways of Responsible Gambling: How Personalized and Normative Messages Engage Gambling Severity and Individual Rationality
The way health recommendations are presented can shape how people perceive the information and its persuasion. This paper seeks to clarify whether the processing of two types of messages that promote responsible gambling, namely personalized messages (tailored suggestions based on gambling behaviors) and normative messages (which encourage behavior that aligns with socially acceptable standards), varies across gamblers’ severity habits and rational thinking. Particularly, using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), we examined brain activation patterns in response to both message types among 42 individuals with varying levels of gambling severity (assessed by the Problem Gambling Severity Index, PGSI) and self-perceived rationality (assessed by the trait prudence scale).
Our findings support the hypothesis that personalized messages resonate more with individuals with higher PGSI scores, activating self-referential brain regions such as the medial prefrontal cortex more strongly. In contrast, normative messages are more effective for those with elevated self-perceived prudence scores, and they strongly engage mentalizing regions like the left angular gyrus. These results emphasize the role of personal traits in message receptivity and suggest that responsible gambling interventions may be more effective when the message type is aligned with an individual’s severity and rationality profile.
|
