Social responsibility in gambling has become a major issue for the gaming industry. This has been coupled with the rise of behavioural tracking technologies that allow companies to track every behavioural decision and action made by gamblers on online gambling sites, slot machines, and/or any type of gambling that utilizes player cards. This chapter has a number of distinct but related aims including: (a) a brief overview of behavioral tracking technologies accompanied by a critique of both advantages and disadvantages of such technologies for both the gaming industry and researchers; and (b) results from a series of studies completed using behavioral tracking data to evaluate the efficacy of online responsible gambling tools (particularly in relation to data concerning the use of social responsibility tools such as limit setting, pop-up messaging, and personalized feedback to gamblers).

This chapter summarizes the current state of the art with respect to school-based drug misuse prevention. The chapter begins by presenting an historical overview of prevention, including summarizing drug use trends based on national surveillance data. The chapter then includes a brief overview outlining the principles of social learning and self-efficacy theories of human motivation, both of which have played a central role in guiding the development of many current prevention models. Several real-world barriers to program implementation are also discussed. In particular, the chapter discusses procedures for ensuring that programs are culturally sound, including discussion of whether deep versus surface structure changes are required to effectively deliver prevention to ethnic or racial subgroups. The various steps required to achieve cultural sensitivity are illustrated using the keepin’ it REAL prevention program. The chapter then explores manipulation checks showcasing how program evaluations use mediation analyses to empirically confirm the active ingredients of drug prevention. The chapter also discusses the need for longitudinal follow-up to establish durable program effects and provides several evidence-based examples drawn from smoking and other drug prevention studies. The chapter closes by summarizing concerns with implementation, the role of teachers in program delivery, and capacity building, all of which influence program outcomes.

Skin cancer is a major public health issue with global rates of disease steadily on the rise. Intentional tanning behaviors, including sunbathing and indoor tanning, are high-risk practices strongly associated with an increased risk of skin cancer. Despite the known health risks, both indoor and outdoor tanning remain popular, particularly among young adult non-Hispanic white women. While all tanning increases the risk of skin cancer, in a subset of those who tan the behavior becomes frequent and excessive, with addiction-like properties. “Tanning addiction” is thus associated with the characteristics of other addictions such as craving for the behavior, a reinforcing effect, an inability to quit, and resulting adverse health consequences related to the behavior. Motivations driving tanning addiction may stem from both psychological factors such as appearance norms and from the physiologic effects of exposure to ultraviolet light on brain reward pathways influencing mood. In this chapter we present the concept of tanning as an addiction, reviewing its definition, measurement, and prevalence in the population, and outlining the empirical evidence for the behavioral and biological drivers of tanning addiction. The implications of this research, we suggest, warrants greater attention to this emerging addiction, and necessitates the development of effective prevention and treatment interventions in those at risk of addictive tanning.

Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS) is an umbrella term for all drug and nondrug addictive behaviors, due to a dopamine deficiency, “hypodopaminergia.” There is an opioid-overdose epidemic in the USA, which may result in or worsen RDS. A paradigm shift is needed to combat a system that is not working. This shift involves the recognition of dopamine homeostasis as the ultimate treatment of RDS via precision, genetically guided KB220 variants, called Precision Behavioral Management (PBM). Recognition of RDS as an endophenotype and an umbrella term in the future DSM 6, following the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC), would assist in shifting this paradigm.

Neuroimaging techniques have rapidly expanded our understanding of how the brain responds to addiction in humans. This chapter will discuss methods used to assess brain response, how the data is analyzed, and how it can be used to better understand addiction. Foundational to inferences drawn from these methods is study design. Common designs employed in human neuroimaging research are discussed, including cross-sectional designs, longitudinal/cohort designs, and experimental designs. A description of various neuroimaging methods and their strengths and weaknesses is included: functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron-emission tomography, electroencephalogram, magnetoencephalography, structural MRI, and resting state fMRI. Given its popularity in research, discussion of MRI includes details on paradigm design and data analysis of functional and structural MRI, as well as some common oversights in data processing and interpretation of results.

Compulsive buying disorder (CBD) is characterized by excessive shopping of unneeded or unwanted items that leads to distress or impairment. The classification of compulsive buying disorder remains elusive. Some researchers suggest that it should be grouped with behavioral addictions, while others have linked it to mood and to obsessive-compulsive disorders. CBD is relatively common, with prevalence rates in general population varying from 2 percent to 8 percent across different countries. Age of onset typically coincides with the age at which people first establish credit accounts and with emancipation from home. It shares similar clinical characteristics with classical addictive disorders including compulsive preoccupation, craving, loss of control and negative consequences of shopping. CBD tends to run in families and is associated with significant psychiatric comorbidity, particularly mood and anxiety disorders, substance use disorders, eating disorders, and other disorders of impulse control. Little is known about the neurobiological and genetic mechanisms underlying CBD, nor is there standard treatment. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is promising, while medication studies have been disappointing. Future research on CBD should target etiologic mechanisms and both psychological and pharmacological treatments. Beyond treatment, educational (i.e., learning new coping skills, media literacy instruction) and public policy efforts, as well as parental modeling of appropriate buying behavior, could be beneficial to those with CBD.

This chapter discusses the relevance of addiction to the law in the United States. Current law pertains almost solely to substance addictions, as there is no legal status pertaining to most behavioral addictions. Particular emphasis is placed on the law’s impact on the provision of care and research of addiction. The conflicting legal concerns for confidentiality of treatment and research, on the one hand, and apprehension of addicts who break the law, on the other hand, are examined.

Sex addiction has received substantial attention over the past decade and has been accepted by the World Health Organization as Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder in the forthcoming ICD-11. This chapter outlines etiology, existing controversies, measurement, and treatment approaches to helping individuals with sex addiction in clinical settings. Although a lot of research has helped researchers and practitioners better understand the associated characteristics of sex addiction, the field is still in its infancy and in need of further study.

In the past few decades, the notion of what constitutes addictive behavior has expanded to include nonsubstance-related behaviors. The World Health Organization recently recognized gambling and gaming disorders as addictive behaviors, and there has been support in the field to include compulsive sexual behaviors as well. Considerable support for reclassification of these behaviors from impulse-control disorders to addictive behaviors has come from studies showing neurobiological similarities with substance use disorders. Behavioral addictions have been found to have similar neurobiological correlates with each other and with substance use disorders on multiple levels of analysis such as alterations in availability of receptors in mesolimbic pathways, the amplitudes of cue-induced late potentials, and frontostriatal activity during reward-based tasks. The implicated neuropathological features support the inclusion of nonsubstance behaviors as addictive behaviors.

This chapter will provide an overview of the various ways in which addictive disorders can be studied using human participants in laboratory settings. Human laboratory research provides an important piece of the translational research chain by enabling researchers to examine addictive behaviors in controlled settings using validated experimental methodologies. This chapter will cover three common laboratory techniques: cue exposure protocols, stress induction protocols, and addictive object self-administration protocols. The primary goal is to provide a methodological guide to conducting research using these approaches, but not extensively review previous research. Therefore, for each technique, we discuss the background and rationale, ethical considerations, strengths and limitations, and representative examples and promising future directions in the use of the technique to study substance and behavioral addictions.

Earlier neurobiological models of substance addictions proposed that addiction is the product of an imbalance between two separate, but interacting, neural systems: (1) an impulsive and amygdala-striatum dependent system that promotes automatic and habitual behaviors, and (2) a “reflective” prefrontal cortex dependent system for decision-making, forecasting the future consequences of a behavior, and inhibitory control. These impulsive and reflective systems are analogous to Daniel Kahneman’s model of System I and System II thinking, or the Behavioral Activation System (BAS) and the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS). Here, the reflective system controls the impulsive system through several distinct mechanisms that regulate impulses. However, this control is not absolute – hyperactivity within the impulsive system can override the reflective system. Most prior research has focused either on the impulsive system (especially the ventral striatum and its mesolimbic dopamine projections) as a mechanism promoting the motivation and drive to seek drugs, or on the reflective system (prefrontal cortex) as a mechanism for decision-making and impulse control. More recent evidence suggests that a largely overlooked structure, the insula, also plays a key role in maintaining addiction (craving). Hence, a triadic model of addiction incorporates these three systems that are associated with archetypal behaviors in addiction: craving, motivation to procure the drug, poor decision-making, lack of impulse control, and deficits in self-regulation.

Romantic love is a universal feeling that most individuals hope to experience in their lifetime. At its best, it is fulfilling, joyous, committed, and stable. However, there is a chance that love can become dysregulated, associated with a preoccupation with love objects, stalking, and/or depression. Feelings of love mimic individual’s neurobiological responses to drugs of abuse and can become an obsession that resembles behaviors of a substance-dependent addict. In this chapter, we discuss the evolution of romantic love and love addiction etiology. We speculate on four personality dimensions that may distinguish certain love-related behaviors and addiction. Finally, we draw from substance and behavioral addiction literature to suggest various prevention and treatment strategies for those who are susceptible to or currently afflicted by love addiction.

This chapter provides an overview of the key areas of agreement and debate about workaholism, particularly its conceptualization, prevention, and treatment. The chapter integrates biomedical and health psychology perspectives with a view to challenging and advancing understanding on how to prevent people from developing a problematic relationship with work, and how best to support those experiencing the problem. The chapter begins by reviewing the conceptualization of workaholism, and then reviews the existing evidence concerning the main correlates and vulnerability factors. This discussion then leads to an exploration into alternative ways that workaholism can be theorized, in particular biopsychosocial models and critical theory of addiction. Building upon this combined theoretical perspective, the chapter ends by reviewing and speculating on different aspects of prevention and treatment according to the different stakeholders involved.