Friend, family and global social support, peer deviance and gambling frequency were examined as predictors of gambling involvement. Analyses focused on the predictors of gambling involvement with the covariate, drug-use, removed. For the 962 college student (mean age 18.5) participants, global social support, peer deviance and gambling frequency were the best predictors of gambling involvement with drug-use removed. Although males and females both reported diminished perceived supports globally and increased peer deviance as their reported level of gambling involvement increased, females reported less perceived support from all three networks. Males did not perceive less support from friends and family as their gambling involvement increased. The social support construct provides a social contextualization for future gambling involvement investigations. One important implication of this research is that diminished global social support will need to be recognized as a significant risk factor predicting problem gambling by researchers, clinicians and politicians alike. Peer deviance will need to be recognized as a significant risk-factor for males as well as females. Males reported more gambling-related problems than females. Although peer deviance significantly increased for both males and females with greater gambling involvement, peer deviance was higher among males than females. Males perceived no diminished sense of family and friend support. However, this shift for females appears to be evidence of diminished perceived support from all sources: family and friends as well as globally. Researchers, clinicians and politicians need to be aware that adolescents and young adults are at increased risk for encountering gambling problems as gambling frequency and peer deviance affiliation increases, and social support perceived to be available globally diminishes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.84417 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Powell, Guy Jeff |
| Contributors | Bracewell, Robert (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001984186, proquestno: AAINQ88560, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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