Cognitive explanations of gambling

In regards to gambling, the cognitive approach provides the self medication model that attempts to explain the way in which people initiate themselves into gambling. 

The self medication model proposes that individuals intentionally use different forms of pathological behaviour to treat the pathological symptoms that they suffer. The paticular activity is not selected at random, but chooses the one which is percieved to help with the behaviour most. 

Research support for this model comes from Li. Who found that compared to pathological gamblers who gambled simply for pleasure, the gamblers who gambled to escape the pain from reality had other substance dependencies. Suggest that they were self medicating their suffering with different forms…