Male, with low levels of consciousness and kindness and with high school maladjustment is the majority profile among young people with this type of addiction.
Gaming Disorder (GD) is included in the latest edition of the WHO’s International Classification of Diseases, from 2018. Just in that year, the growth in the use of video games in Spain was 6.2%. In this context, the TXP research group of the CEU Cardenal Herrera University (CEU UCH) of Castellón, led by professor Gonzalo Haro, who is also responsible for the severe dual pathology programme of the Provincial Hospital of Castellón, began a study to detect the teenage personality traits that predispose the youth to videogame addiction, comparing it to substance addiction. Their conclusions, which were recently published in scientific journal Adicciones, reveal that a majority of teenagers with videogame addiction are male, with low levels of personality traits related to consciousness and kindness, and have higher school maladjustment.
The researchers, belonging to the Departments of Education and Health at the CEU UCH and the Department of Mental Health of the Provincial Hospital of Castellón, performed a transversal study among 397 teenagers from third and fourth year of obligatory secondary education from five high schools, focusing their analysis on a final sample of 119 students, 6.4% of which were addicted to video games. The goal was to study, with different internationally validated evaluation ranges and questionnaires, the connection between this type of addiction and personality traits that can predispose a person to have it. Also, to identify psycopathologies such as anxiety, depression and social anxiety, which are more present in young people with this addiction. And lastly, to establish their connection with school maladjustment and poor performance at school.
Personality traits
One of the tools used int his study is the Big Five personality questionnaire for children and teenagers, which evaluates five dimensions connected to personality traits: conscientiousness, relative to autonomy, order, accuracy, perseverance and complying with rules and commitments; openness, which includes intellectual, creativity and cultural interest factors; extraversion, linked to sociability, activity, enthusiasm, assertiveness and self-confidence; agreeableness, as a tendency towards altruism, pro-sociability and level of cooperation and sensitivity to others and their needs; and neuroticism or the tendency to be neurotic and feel uncomfortable, with mood swings, anxiety, depression, discontent and irritability. Marta Sánchez, psychiatry resident at the Provincial Hospital of Castellón and member of the TXP group of the CEU UCH highlights that “teenagers with videogame use disorders showed low levels of conscientiousness and agreeableness, two of the five analysed personality dimensions”.
Regarding psychopathologies, the study has analysed, among others, those included in the multidimensional system for behaviour assessment BASC (Behaviour Assessment System for Children), which includes the dimension of school maladjustment, measuring their attitude towards school and teachers, as well as the search for emotions. “High scores in this system are connected to psychopathology, the risk of school absenteeism and the tendency to adopt new or risky behaviours. In our study, teenagers with video game addiction were the ones that scored the highest in the dimension of school maladjustment, over those who had addiction to substances and those who had no addiction,” highlights María Isabel Martí, professor at the Department of Education of the UCH CU and researcher of the TXP group.
For a more specific prevention
The goal of analysing the differences regarding personality traits and psycopathologies shown by teenagers addicted to videogames with respect to substance addictions performed in this study is to contribute to develop specific prevention programmes for young people with predisposing factors to one addiction or another. Francesc Rodríguez-Ruiz, doctoral student at the CEINDO school of the CEU and psychiatry resident at the Provincial Hospital of Castellón, adds that “the probability of a video game use disorder increases if the individual is a male and has school maladjustment; whereas the disorder for consuming substances increases if the teenager has neuroticism, a low personal adjustment and emotional symptoms, as well as school maladjustment”.
For the researchers, these differences can help improve the prevention of addictive behaviours among teenagers, developing differentiated intervention programmes in the case of addiction to video games, as a behavioural addiction, compared to substance addiction. Furthermore, these programmes would be more effective if they detected emotional angst or psycopathology. In other words, if they work on self-awareness and teach emotional regulation strategies. And also, if they foster responsibility as a protective factor against different types of addiction, and if they explore adaptations and attitudes towards school in a preventive way.
Research team
The “Personality traits and psychopathology in teenagers addicted to video games”, published in the Addictioes journal, was led by doctor Gonzalo Haro Cortés, Mental Health professor in the Degree in Medicine of the CEU UCH, principal investigator at the TXP group and responsible for the severe dual pathology programme at the Provincial Hospital of Castellón. The researchers of the TXP group who took part in this work are Marta Sánchez Llorens and Francesc Rodríguez Ruiz, psychiatry residents at the Department of Mental Health of the Provincial Hospital of Castellón; María Isabel Marí, Francisca Castellano and Isabel Almodóvar, professors at the Departments of Education Sciences and Health Sciences of the CEU UCH of Castellón; and Ana Benito, from the Mental Health Unit of Torrente (Valencia).