of mind. For example, studies have shown that students who studied for exams with music on would receive better marks with music playing than without. In the same way, people experiencing something when intoxicated are more likely to remember that experience when drinking alcohol. While making a shopping list, returning to the room in which a thought of what to buy occurred will help you to remember that item. State-dependence is helping you to remember. This means that you may view and treat money differently in a casino than in other places.
Money changes meaning over time. That is why money is spent in casinos in ways that are not seen in normal life. People do not value money in the same way in a casino. Instead of viewing money as hard-earned cash, which should be carefully managed, it becomes either a means to win more money or a tool to help improve a bad situation. Habituation partly explains why this happens. Habituation is fed by big rewards and the need to use larger stakes to earn a larger payout.
I once spoke to a croupier who had just paid out $230,000 on a jackpot bonus bet. She said the man who won the jackpot did not smile and his only comment was that the money would probably repay everything he had lost in the last 20 years of gambling. That to me is both sad and astounding to think that gambling makes money seem so worthless. Sad in that the pleasure of the reward has been completely habituated, and astounding in that so much money could mean so little. As I am not a hard-core gambler my reaction to a win like that would be completely different.
What have we learnt so far in this section? We have learnt that people like pleasurable rewards, and if they receive a pleasurable reward they are more likely to engage in that behaviour again. Therefore, the experience of winning is a very powerful one. The irony is that it is not so much the size of the win but the feelings generated by the win. This then establishes the situation of new experiences producing the best rewards. However, with our knowledge of habituation we realise that gambling is neither simply about the reward nor the money. We can see that the reward loses power over time. The logical response should be to stop gambling as the payout becomes less effective. Casinos are busy, so it means that something else must account for persistent gambling.
Key Points
•The pleasure principle is the first type of reward. The joy of pleasure cannot be underestimated. Neurotransmitters surge through the brain when a gambling win takes place.
•We are designed to remember things which are pleasurable and then repeat the experience.
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