The role of social motivation and sociability of gamers in online game addiction
Massively multiplayer online (MMO) games represent a long-standing, intensive and wide spread type of online applications whose popularity continues to grow. Although just a mere entertainment and leisure activity for most gamers, its potentially negative and addictive outcomes were intensively stud...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Masaryk University
2014-07-01
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| Series: | Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberpspace |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://cyberpsychology.eu/article/view/4309 |
| _version_ | 1827311017925804032 |
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| author | Lukas Blinka Jakub Mikuška |
| author_facet | Lukas Blinka Jakub Mikuška |
| author_sort | Lukas Blinka |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Massively multiplayer online (MMO) games represent a long-standing, intensive and wide spread type of online applications whose popularity continues to grow. Although just a mere entertainment and leisure activity for most gamers, its potentially negative and addictive outcomes were intensively studied and recently also acknowledged by the American Psychiatric Association (2013). MMOs are essentially a social activity, but empirical studies are equivocal in identifying whether and to what extent the social factors help develop the addictive gaming habits associated with these applications. The present study seeks to directly identify the role of social factors in online addictive gaming. Survey data from 667 MMO gamers were analysed. Together with an online game addiction scale, the investigated psychological factors included social motivation for gaming, online peer attachment and social self-efficacy. The results revealed that although social motivation was a predictor of addictive gaming, high social motivation was typical for intensive gamers regardless of their level of addiction. However, gamers at-risk of addiction scored lower in their social self-efficacy and interpersonal trust measured by peer attachment. This supports the poor-get-poorer hypothesis, that generally less socially skilled gamers face further problems online. However, social factors were only modestly associated to online addictive gaming which indicates higher relevance of other factors identified by literature, e.g. immersion and in-game rewards systems. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-24T20:09:14Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-c8ff954b86f848c5831ff3bbbd025606 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1802-7962 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-24T20:09:14Z |
| publishDate | 2014-07-01 |
| publisher | Masaryk University |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberpspace |
| spelling | doaj.art-c8ff954b86f848c5831ff3bbbd0256062024-03-23T13:15:29ZengMasaryk UniversityCyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberpspace1802-79622014-07-018210.5817/CP2014-2-6The role of social motivation and sociability of gamers in online game addictionLukas BlinkaJakub MikuškaMassively multiplayer online (MMO) games represent a long-standing, intensive and wide spread type of online applications whose popularity continues to grow. Although just a mere entertainment and leisure activity for most gamers, its potentially negative and addictive outcomes were intensively studied and recently also acknowledged by the American Psychiatric Association (2013). MMOs are essentially a social activity, but empirical studies are equivocal in identifying whether and to what extent the social factors help develop the addictive gaming habits associated with these applications. The present study seeks to directly identify the role of social factors in online addictive gaming. Survey data from 667 MMO gamers were analysed. Together with an online game addiction scale, the investigated psychological factors included social motivation for gaming, online peer attachment and social self-efficacy. The results revealed that although social motivation was a predictor of addictive gaming, high social motivation was typical for intensive gamers regardless of their level of addiction. However, gamers at-risk of addiction scored lower in their social self-efficacy and interpersonal trust measured by peer attachment. This supports the poor-get-poorer hypothesis, that generally less socially skilled gamers face further problems online. However, social factors were only modestly associated to online addictive gaming which indicates higher relevance of other factors identified by literature, e.g. immersion and in-game rewards systems.https://cyberpsychology.eu/article/view/4309online game addictionsocial motivationsociabilitysocial self-efficacypeer-attachment |
| spellingShingle | Lukas Blinka Jakub Mikuška The role of social motivation and sociability of gamers in online game addiction Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberpspace online game addiction social motivation sociability social self-efficacy peer-attachment |
| title | The role of social motivation and sociability of gamers in online game addiction |
| title_full | The role of social motivation and sociability of gamers in online game addiction |
| title_fullStr | The role of social motivation and sociability of gamers in online game addiction |
| title_full_unstemmed | The role of social motivation and sociability of gamers in online game addiction |
| title_short | The role of social motivation and sociability of gamers in online game addiction |
| title_sort | role of social motivation and sociability of gamers in online game addiction |
| topic | online game addiction social motivation sociability social self-efficacy peer-attachment |
| url | https://cyberpsychology.eu/article/view/4309 |
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