Interconnection of military officer's status in the team and risk of gambling addiction

Introduction. The issue of military officers' problem gambling is under consideration. The negative effects of the mentioned phenomenon for military officers' economical behaviour are described. Materials and Methods. Five military collectives were studied including 115 respondents. The authors used a mathematical analysis of the obtained data to verify the hypothesis concerning the fact that the military officers who closely interact with the collective are prone to higher risk of gambling addiction if there are already such people in the team. Results and Discussion. The research sets forth the aspects of interaction between sociometrical statuses of cadets in the learning collectives of the military institute and the risk of gambling addiction and other forms of addicted behaviour. The authors reveal that people with a stronger gambling addiction have more emotionally favourable interrelations with others, and the groups consisting of a larger number of such people have a more favourable emotional climate. The connection between the emotional status and the level of gambling addiction depends on intergroup and not intragroup differences of these variables. Conclusions: Military institutes cadets' involvement in addictive behaviour such as gambling can be the factor for development of collectives' emotional unity. Interpersonal attraction in the military cadets' collectives has mutual influence with their common interests including destructive ones. People with a relatively high risk of game addiction are more integrated into collective relations, primarily emotional (beyond the service) ones.