The practical implications of these findings may be somewhat disconcerting because they could lead parents to assume that aggressive behavior can be avoided as long as they do not interfere with
pathological gaming habits.
Not exact matches
Although numerous studies have shown strong correlations between excessive
gaming habits and
pathological involvement (e.g., Charlton and Danforth 2007; Gentile 2009), to date, no study has examined whether
pathological gaming causes
gaming binges to exacerbate over time.
This indicates that
pathological gaming may be considered progressive, and if this behavior is not controlled or reduced, excessive
gaming habits could exacerbate over time, which will likely lead to problems by displacing other important activities (e.g., Griffiths and Davies 2005).
Our aims for this study were to longitudinally examine if
pathological gaming leads to increasingly excessive
gaming habits, and how
pathological gaming may cause an increase in physical aggression.
Based on the definition for
pathological gambling from the DSM (APA 2000),
pathological gaming is defined as the persistent and recurrent inability to control excessive
gaming habits despite associated social and / or emotional problems (Lemmens et al. 2009).
Therefore, studies that have applied survey scales to measure
pathological gaming have generally included items concerning various problems and conflicts arising from
gaming habits (e.g., Charlton and Danforth 2007; Salguero and Moran 2002).
In examination of what early predictors discriminate between those who become
pathological gamers and those who do not (Table 2), several personal characteristics and
gaming habits seem to act as risk factors.