Positive and negative urgency among addicted gamblers: the role of emotional suppression

Background: Several empirical contributions brought contrasting results toward the role played by impulsivity and emotion regulation (ER) in Gambling Disorder (GD). Moreover, it is not clear how these two psychopathological aspects interact in relation to GD. Method: We administered to a sample of addicted gamblers (N=70) and a sample of community participants (N=100) the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS; Lesieur & Blume, 1987), the Impulsive Behavior Scale (Whiteside & Lynam, 2001) and the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003). Results: As expected, addicted gamblers showed higher levels of impulsivity and suppression and lower levels of reappraisal compared to community participants. Moreover, GD severity was positively correlated to suppression and both negative and positive urgency but negatively correlated with reappraisal. Finally, a positive interaction between suppression and negative urgency emerged. Conclusions: Our results extended previous research, suggesting that emotional components of impulsivity and deficits in ER may be involved in GD. Noteworthy, our study shed light on the interaction between ER capacities and the proneness to act rashly under the influence of negative emotions. Future directions toward the role of positive emotions accounting for GD are discussed.