The integration of psychological and cognitive aspects has a critical relationship with problematic internet use, online gambling, and gaming with depression and life quality among college students. Significantly, there are diverse reasons why individuals continue to bet despite losing severally. According to Hoek et al., the cognitive approach illustrates different beliefs that make gamblers overestimate the actual chances of winning (2). College students are addicted to gambling, hence seeing it to make a vast fortune within a short duration (Kalkan and Bhat 19). They do not focus on the chances of losing the bet. Moreover, social cognitive theory develops a critical understanding of why scholars are addicted to internet use. The social cognitive theory is regarded as an interpersonal level model pioneered by Albert Bandura, emphasizing human interactions with the environment (Yakovenko et al. 175). The world is embracing globalization, where people are communicating despite working in far-reaching geographical areas. In other words, individuals can communicate effectively despite one being in Europe, whereas another family member or friend is in the U.S. The environment and nature dictate how people interact in society, hence making college students addicted to the internet.
The cognitive research in psychology indicates that the tendency of gambling regularly leads to brain damage. Schneider et al. opine that the brain of the pathological gamblers dysregulates the brain areas linked directly to emotion and reward (84). For instance, chronic gambling affects the striatum and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Moreover, addictive gambling retrogressively involves alterations in dopamine neurotransmission (Schneider et al. 91). It becomes easy for a person to develop disorders that are related to anxiety and depression, consequently. The gambling distortions trigger the personal control attribute among persons. The ‘near-misses’ instances of gambling enhance cognitive distortions, promoting continued and excessive gambling. Individuals tend to think that they are likely to win by placing the next bet. Moreover, when individuals do not visit social media platforms, they feel uncomfortable. They have to check on their friends online apart from getting the general updates on what is happening globally. Visiting the internet among college students is a form of therapy that leads to mental relaxation. Therefore, cognitive research is a broad topic that can be applied to comprehend why college students are affected by gambling and subsequent depression.
In the cognitive approach, classical conditioning is another aspect that can explain the relationship between chronic online gambling and the retrogressive effects that it is causing among individuals. Denotatively, classical conditioning is the psychological perspective of individuals relating a given phenomenon to a given form of reward or incident. Upon the withdrawal of the prize, one will continue to embrace the same behavior. People that bet are motivated by the fact that they will get massive amounts of money and become rich. Arguably, it indisputable that there are people that have become millionaires because of online gaming and gambling. There are high chances that students who have become addicted to gambling have won some bets in the past. As a result, these college students develop classical conditioning, whereby they relate betting to financial rewards. The individuals develop an understanding that they will consequently get money when they gamble, hence becoming anxious. Understandably, anxiety creates stress, which subsequently leads to depression when one loses a bet. Therefore, it is worth noting that classical conditioning is massively contributing to the high online gambling and gaming trend among college students.
Works Cited
Hoek, Jet, Jacqueline Evers-Vermeul, and Ted JM Sanders. “Using the Cognitive Approach to Coherence Relations for Discourse Annotation.” Dialogue & Discourse, vol.10, no.2, 2019, pp. 1-33.
Kalkan, Bilal, and Christine Suniti Bhat. “Relationships of Problematic Internet Use, Online Gaming, and Online Gambling with Depression and Quality of Life among College Students.” International Journal of Contemporary Educational Research, vol. 7, no. 1, 2020, pp.18-28.
Schneider, Brett, and Michael Koenigs. “Human Lesion Studies of the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex.” Neuropsychologia, vol.107, no.1, 2017, pp. 84-93.
Yakovenko, Igor, et al. “Cognitive Distortions Predict Future Gambling Involvement.” International Gambling Studies, vol. 16, no.2, 2016, pp. 175-192.