title: Assessing the impact of cue exposure on craving to gamble in university students.
abstract: We recruited a sample of university student gamblers (n = 48) to complete a web-based battery of instruments in a study designed to assess the impact of imagery-based versus photographic cue exposure on acute craving to gamble using the multi-item Gambling Urge Scale (GUS; Raylu and Oei 2004). Although self-reported craving increased following both forms of cue exposure, the imagery script had a more pronounced impact than did examination of photographs of gambling-related stimuli. We also evaluated the association of the post-cue exposure GUS with other relevant measures, and found it correlated highly both with other questionnaires assessing craving to gamble and with other gambling-relevant characteristics (e.g., gambling-related problems, preoccupation with gambling, distorted gambling beliefs, gambling refusal self-efficacy, sensation seeking), but was not associated with social desirability bias. These findings support the use of the GUS-a brief multi-item scale that shows several key elements of construct, convergent, criterion and discriminant validity-to study the experience of craving in university student gamblers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA. lashraf@bgsu.edu
authors.forename: Lisham
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ashrafioun
authors.forename: Amy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: McCarthy
authors.forename: Harold
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Rosenberg
mesh_terms: D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005715:Gambling / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D020377:Self Efficacy; D012919:Social Behavior; D013334:Students; D014495:Universities; D055815:Young Adult