Unpacking the Myth in the Associations Between Self-control and Gaming Disorder in Children and Adolescents: A Comparison Between Traditional and Random Intercept Cross-lagged Panel Model Analyses - International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction
Internet gaming is becoming increasingly popular; however, children and adolescents are highly vulnerable to gaming disorder due to the underdevelopment of cognitive control. Longitudinal research providing empirical evidence confirming the stability and direction of the association between self-control and gaming disorder is scarce. This study is aimed at clarifying whether prospective relationships exist between self-control and gaming disorder in children and adolescents or whether they are associated due to common causes. We examined the temporal dynamics of the associations between self-control and gaming disorder symptom severity using a traditional cross-lagged panel model (CLPM; aggregating between- and within-person variance) and a random intercept CLPM (RI-CLPM; disaggregating between- and within-person effects) with three-annual wave data from a large cohort of primary and secondary students (N = 1359, mean age 12.67 (SD 1.40), 834 (61.7%) girls). The traditional CLPM indicated a unidirectional negative relationship from self-control to later gaming disorder (B with 95% confidence interval [CI] = − 0.12 [− 0.19, − 0.040]), whereas the RI-CLPM analysis revealed no prospective relationship between self-control and gaming disorder (95% CIs of Bs all contain 0), indicating that self-control was neither the cause nor the result of gaming disorder in children and adolescents. Our study revealed that the nature of the relationship between self-control and gaming disorder tends to be correlational but not causal. The potential common underlying factors for future research are discussed.
- Qi, D., Li, X., & Zhu, S. (2024). Unpacking the Myth in the Associations Between Self-control and Gaming Disorder in Children and Adolescents: A Comparison Between Traditional and Random Intercept Cross-lagged Panel Model Analyses. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-024-01294-0
インターネットゲームの人気はますます高まっているが、小児や青年は認知的コントロールが未発達であるため、ゲーム障害に対して非常に脆弱である。自制心とゲーム障害の関連性の安定性と方向性を確認する実証的証拠を提供する縦断的研究は乏しい。本研究は、児童・青年における自制心とゲーム障害の間に前向きな関係が存在するのか、あるいは共通の原因によって関連するのかを明らかにすることを目的とした。初等・中等教育の大規模コホート（N=1359、平均年齢12.67歳（SD 1.40）、女子834名（61.7％））の3年ごとのウェーブデータを用いて、伝統的な交差ラグ付きパネルモデル（CLPM；個人間分散と個人内分散を集約）とランダム切片CLPM（RI-CLPM；個人間効果と個人内効果を分解）を用いて、自制心とゲーム障害の症状重症度との関連性の時間的ダイナミクスを検討した。従来のCLPMでは、自制心とその後のゲーム障害との間に一方向の負の関係（95％信頼区間[CI]のB = – 0.12 [- 0.19, – 0.040]）が示されたが、RI-CLPM分析では、自制心とゲーム障害との間に前向きな関係は認められず（Bの95％CIはすべて0を含む）、自制心は児童・青年におけるゲーム障害の原因でも結果でもないことが示された。本研究により、自制心とゲーム障害の関係の性質は、相関的ではあるが因果的ではない傾向があることが明らかになった。今後の研究のために、潜在的な共通基盤因子について考察する。