Pathological gambling among university students – the impact of personality and subjective well-being

Abstract

Introduction: Students are at a higher risk of developing pathological gambling compared to the general population. Research has revealed a link between higher Neuroticism, lower Conscientiousness and pathological gambling, and that pathological gamblers tend to report poorer subjective well-being. Thus, the major objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between pathological gambling (PG), personality traits and subjective well-being (SWB) among university students. Method: 150 students were recruited to complete three questionnaires: the Canadian Problem Gambling Index (CPGI) as a measure of severity of gambling, the Big five inventory (BFI-20) to measure personality traits, and the HUNT Quality of Life-5 (QoL-5) to assess subjective well-being (SWB). Results: By using the program IBM SPSS Statistics for Mac version 25, we established a relationship between PG and low Conscientiousness, but not high Neuroticism or low SWB. SWB could be largely explained by high Neuroticism, low Extraversion and low Conscientiousness. Gender, i.e. males, was also associated with PG. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that Norwegian male students are more prone to have characteristics associated with problem gambling behavior, and that low Conscientiousness is associated with problem gambling behavior.