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

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 ofBs 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.
Source: International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction - Category: Addiction Source Type: research