Are You Hardwired for Gambling? - Jonah Lehrer

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2010/01/05/Jonah_Lehrer_How_We_Decide

Author Jonah Lehrer offers his insight into the brain's chemical processes that form the roots of gambling addiction. Lehrer explains that when a gambler wins, he receives a "surprising squirt of dopamine" that stimulates the brain more than an expected victory.

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Over the last 20 years, neuroscience research has fundamentally changed our understanding of decision making.

Lehrer, a critically acclaimed science writer and the popular blogger behind "The Frontal Cortex," explains what the latest in cutting-edge research can tell us about how our minds work. How do we make decisions? And how can we make decisions...better? - Commonwealth Club

Jonah Lehrer is an Editor at Large for Seed Magazine and the author of How We Decide and Proust Was a Neuroscientist. He graduated from Columbia University and studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.

He's written for The New Yorker, Nature, Wired, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe. He is also a Contributing Editor at Scientific American Mind.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• gambling
• addiction
• gamblers
• slot
• machine
• machines
• psychology
• neurology
• brains
• dopamine
• chemicals
• neuroscience
• research
• fora.tv
• foratv
• fora
• tv
• jonah
• lehrer
• commonwealth
• club

[thunderpants10]

I tell ya I got a suprise squirt of juice once, I'm not sure how my dopamine receptors responded but I fuckin knocked that kid out.

[planetdarwin]

if you spend any time around hardcore gamblers you'll notice that they love talking about patterns and machines being "ready to hit", etc. But if you explain the technology, the randomness, the pattern-less, or the actual reality of the games, gamblers get a little irritated because you're conflicting with their "little squirts" of biochemical fun.

[maxwellpassion]

@maxwellpassion Well there's obviously algorithms in the machines but they're designed to take your money. Not give you money. Nobody would make a machine that takes your money and gives you back more. Nobody would! They'd just GIVE you the money, straight out. It's stupid, really. Poor people DEFINITELY are being taken for their money and it's really stupid. If anything blow up a casino (jk don't). They're money hoarders.

[maxwellpassion]

If you don't realize that a PROGRAMMED MACHINE is taking your money, or WHY the company is letting out the carrot, you're gonna fall for it. Be smart and see the possibilities instead of following your intuition. Gambling is CHANCE. Complete chance. Please... Know this. If everyone stopped going to casino's it'd be a better world, really.

[happinesson]

gambling is a game of chance! i agree with you..

[670Kiester]

I had my Dopamine neurons removed so I'm ok

[malcolmbryant]

@ndyt, I can't help agreeing with you.

[cottonwhiskersuk]

They don't call it "dope-amine" for nothing.

[phantomcreamer]

I am not suprised when I put money into a machine and wait for some to come out the bottom. Based on my observation that it is not suprising at all, then this relation to monkeys is irrelevant. The study just doesn't correlate. If the monkeys only got juice sometimes when they played the song, then that would relate to getting money sometimes when we put money into the machine. And this guy has also forgot the important addage that correlation does not mean causation!

[dukehey2]

titillating...

and Bah Humbug.

[Finiras]

huh what