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“Set yourself free!” Exploring help-seeking motives in at-risk gamblers

Svetlana De Vos (Australian Institute of Business, Adelaide, Australia)
Jasmina Ilicic (Monash University, Melbourne, Australia)
Pascale G. Quester (Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia)
Roberta Carolyn Crouch (Department of Business Government and Law, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia)

European Journal of Marketing

ISSN: 0309-0566

Article publication date: 3 December 2020

Issue publication date: 7 April 2021

659

Abstract

Purpose

With limited research on help-seeking in the social marketing domain, this research takes a unique perspective through the lens of McGuire’s psychological framework examining the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations (or perceived help-seeking benefits) influencing help-seeking attitudes and behaviour in at-risk gamblers. This paper aims to examine the role that response efficacy has on the relationship between perceived help-seeking benefits and help-seeking behavioural intentions.

Design/methodology/approach

Study 1 used focus groups to explore the positive influence of help-seeking in at-risk gamblers. Studies 2 and 3 used online surveys to further test the direct and indirect impacts of perceived help-seeking benefits on attitudes and behavioural intentions. Structural equation modelling with multi-group analysis (low/high response efficacy) tested the hypotheses.

Findings

Both cognitive and affective psychological motives manifest as distinct intrinsic (well-being, self-esteem and self-control) and extrinsic motivators (social influence) that influence at-risk gamblers’ help-seeking attitudes and intentions to seek professional services. These perceived benefits influence help-seeking intentions directly (for those high in response efficacy) and indirectly via serial attitudinal mediators.

Practical implications

The results provide a guide for practitioners to enhance the promotion of professional help. Practitioners should develop marketing communication messages centred on the specific psychological needs of at-risk gamblers to encourage help-seeking behaviour including an emphasis on assertion, affiliation, independence, utilitarian, tension reduction, ego defence and consistency.

Originality/value

This research is the first, to the knowledge, to examine the psychological motivations that encourage help-seeking in at-risk gamblers, demonstrating that both preservation and growth motives influence help-seeking attitudes and the decision to act.

Keywords

Citation

De Vos, S., Ilicic, J., Quester, P.G. and Crouch, R.C. (2021), "“Set yourself free!” Exploring help-seeking motives in at-risk gamblers", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 55 No. 4, pp. 1203-1226. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-04-2019-0347

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited

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