Combining Cultural and Individual Dimensions in the Analysis of Hazardous Behaviours: An Explorative Study on the Interplay Between Cultural Models, Impulsivity, and Depression in Hazardous Drinking and Gambling

We aimed in this study to analyse how impulsivity and depression are related to hazardous gambling and drinking, while taking into account the moderating effects of the cultural models that people use to interpret their social environment. Cultural models, impulsivity, depression, hazardous gambling, and drinking were assessed in a convenience sample of 329 subjects recruited in three contexts (university, health services and support settings, venues for gambling and drinking) in South-eastern Italy. Mixed models were used to explore the influence of the different variables separately and the interaction between cultural models and the other predictive variables (impulsivity and depression). The findings show that different cultural models of the social environment are related to different probabilities of hazardous drinking and gambling. Heavy drinkers and gamblers tend to perceive their social world as an extremely anomic environment. In the case of hazardous drinking, this critical view of the social environment is associated with lack of premeditation, lack of perseverance, sensation seeking, and depression. In the case of gambling, this view is associated with sensation seeking and depression. Moreover, the way in which the participants evaluated the social environment was found to moderate the influence of depression in hazardous drinking and of sensation seeking in hazardous gambling. The findings of this exploratory study offer support to the idea that exploring cultural factors and how they combine with other psychological and psychosocial risk factors may promote a better understanding of people’s engagement in hazardous behaviours.