Abstract
Internet-gaming disorder (IGD) has become a clinically relevant phenomenon worth investigating with respect to its mechanisms of development and maintenance. Considering theoretical models of specific Internet-use disorders, we assumed an interaction of maladaptive personality traits as unspecific predisposing factors and experience-based, gaming-related Internet-use expectancies in predicting symptoms of IGD. Therefore, 103 male and female regular Internet gamers were investigated with questionnaires assessing maladaptive personality traits in accordance to DSM-5, gaming-related positive and avoidance Internet-use expectancies, and symptoms of IGD. The results demonstrated that negative affectivity, detachment, antagonism, disinhibition, psychoticism as well as gaming-related positive and avoidance expectancies were related to symptoms of IGD. Moreover, the relationship between maladaptive personality traits as represented by negative affectivity, detachment, and psychoticism with symptoms of IGD was mediated by avoidance expectancies. Positive gaming-related use expectancies were related to detachment, and were not a significant mediator in the hypothesized model. The findings give reason to assume that maladaptive personality traits in combination with gaming-related positive expectancies and avoidance expectancies are important factors for the development of IGD, but that positive expectancies and avoidance expectancies play a differential role regarding there mediating role between personality characteristics and symptoms of IGD.
Highlights
Most individuals are able to use games in an unproblematic way and do not or only occasionally experience problems related to gaming
It could be shown that all variables of the PID-5 as well as the factors of the Internet Use Expectancies Scale (IUES) modified for gaming significantly correlated with the s-IATgaming sum score
The Pearson’s correlations of the variables indicated that only the negative affectivity, detachment, and psychoticism of the maladaptive personality traits significantly correlated consistently with the IUES modified for gaming, but not the
Summary
Most individuals are able to use games in an unproblematic way and do not or only occasionally experience problems related to gaming. Personality and Cognition in IGD researchers from media and clinical psychology criticize a potential classification of Internet-gaming disorder (IGD) because of its weak scientific basis [3]. Other researchers are convinced that IGD and other pathological Internet-related behaviors (e.g., pornography use) should be included in future classification systems of diagnoses and are considered most appropriately as behavioral addictions [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18]. Against the background of the controversial discussion on the nature of IGD, more research is needed to understand the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms underlying the development and maintenance of IGD symptoms [15, 23]
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