Do gamblers eat more salt? Testing a latent trait model of covariance in consumption

J Behav Addict. 2015 Sep;4(3):170-80. doi: 10.1556/2006.4.2015.022.

Abstract

A diverse class of stimuli, including certain foods, substances, media, and economic behaviours, may be described as 'reward-oriented' in that they provide immediate reinforcement with little initial investment. Neurophysiological and personality concepts, including dopaminergic dysfunction, reward sensitivity and rash impulsivity, each predict the existence of a latent behavioural trait that leads to increased consumption of all stimuli in this class. Whilst bivariate relationships (co-morbidities) are often reported in the literature, to our knowledge, a multivariate investigation of this possible trait has not been done. We surveyed 1,194 participants (550 male) on their typical weekly consumption of 11 types of reward-oriented stimuli, including fast food, salt, caffeine, television, gambling products, and illicit drugs. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to compare models in a 3×3 structure, based on the definition of a single latent factor (none, fixed loadings, or estimated loadings), and assumed residual covariance structure (none, a-priori / literature based, or post-hoc / data-driven). The inclusion of a single latent behavioural 'consumption' factor significantly improved model fit in all cases. Also confirming theoretical predictions, estimated factor loadings on reward-oriented indicators were uniformly positive, regardless of assumptions regarding residual covariances. Additionally, the latent trait was found to be negatively correlated with the non-reward-oriented indicators of fruit and vegetable consumption. The findings support the notion of a single behavioural trait leading to increased consumption of reward-oriented stimuli across multiple modalities. We discuss implications regarding the concentration of negative lifestyle-related health behaviours.

Keywords: confirmatory factor analysis; consumption; health behaviour; latent trait; substance and behavioural addictions.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Australia / epidemiology
  • Communications Media / statistics & numerical data
  • Diet / statistics & numerical data
  • Factor Analysis, Statistical
  • Female
  • Gambling*
  • Health Behavior*
  • Humans
  • Internet / statistics & numerical data
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Reward*
  • Sodium Chloride, Dietary / administration & dosage*
  • Substance-Related Disorders / epidemiology

Substances

  • Sodium Chloride, Dietary

Grants and funding

Funding for this study was provided by an internal institutional grant. The funder played no role in the design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.