University of Twente Student Theses
The Influence of Social Factors on Gaming Behaviour
Brox, Ricarda-Marie (2011) The Influence of Social Factors on Gaming Behaviour.
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| Abstract: | Gaming has become a popular leisure activity among adolescents, especially among male adolescents. Problems arise if people lose control over their gaming behaviour. Research shows that 3.2 % of the Dutch gamers are already addicted. Online games, in particular the massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), are mostly associated with problems. A critical factor among these games is the social factor. The aim of this study is to examine the influence of social factors on gaming behaviour and on game addiction scores of adolescents. The influence of three social factors was analyzed: subjective norm (SN), descriptive norm (DN) and social pressure (SP). Also differences among genders were proposed from this study as well as from earlier studies. A questionnaire is used to assess the game behaviour and risk factors for game addiction among adolescent students. To test the research questions a cross sectional study was designed. In this study 496 Dutch gamers from secondary education and vocational education were included. Results show that males spent significant more time on playing games than females. Further males tend to have a higher addiction risk than females. The social factors correlate with the time spent on games and the game addiction rate. Further, a tendency towards a greater association with friends and online friends of the three social variables can be seen regarding the amount of time spending on games and the game addiction scale. Also online gaming was more associated with subjective norm than offline gaming. Descriptive norm and social pressure were significant for both types of gaming. Moreover, descriptive norm and social pressure are good predictors of the game addiction scale (GAS). Gender also was identified to be another good predictor with the descriptive norm and social pressure variables. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Bachelor) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 77 psychology |
| Programme: | Psychology BSc (56604) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/60988 |
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