When Criticizing Others It is Helpful to Focus on Actual Behavior: A Comment About Auer and Griffiths (2016)

Excerpt

Recently, Auer and Griffiths published a study focusing on actual—not self-reported—gamblers’ online wins and losses (Auer and Griffiths 2016). Part of their justification for conducting this study included reference to our publication “accuracy of self-reported versus actual online-gambling wins and losses,” which was the first study to examine the important differences between actual and self-reported gambling wins and losses (Braverman et al. 2014). Understanding the difference between actual wins and losses and self-reported wins and losses is essential to understanding some of the cognitive and other psychological processes associated with gambling, memory, and cognitive distortion. For example, “… it is abundantly clear from… research… and everyday observation that people have not always done what they say they have done, will not always do what they say they will do, and often do not even know the real causes of the things they do. These discrepancies mean that self-reports of past behaviors, hypothetical future behaviors, or causes of behavior are not necessarily accurate” (Baumeister et al. 2007). Gambling studies often rest upon a base of evidence built upon self-reported wins and losses. Consequently, we conducted and published a variety of seminal investigations using actual patterns of gambling behavior rather than recounted gambling patterns (e.g., Braverman et al. 2011; LaBrie et al. 2008; LaPlante et al. 2009; Shaffer et al. 2010, 2011). …