An Ecuadorian study of gamblers and video gamers found that positive affect urgency, an aspect of impulsivity, played a greater role in gambling-related compulsions, whereas negative urgency was more important in gaming-related compulsions. The paper is psychological report.
Impulsivity is the tendency to act quickly without fully considering the possible consequences. One well-known theoretical model of impulsivity (UPPS-P model) posits that impulsivity consists of five related but distinct dimensions: negative urgency, positive urgency, lack of planning, lack of perseverance, and sensation seeking.
Negative urgency is the tendency to act rashly when experiencing distress, anger, anxiety, or other strong negative emotions. Positive urgency refers to impulsive behavior triggered by strong positive emotions, such as excitement or euphoria. Lack of planning means acting without thinking well in advance or considering the possible consequences of the action. A lack of patience makes it difficult to maintain attention and complete demanding or monotonous tasks. Sensation seeking is the seeking of novel, exciting, or dangerous experiences.
University of Guayaquil researcher María Jara Rizzo and colleagues investigated the extent to which impulsivity is associated with compulsive traits such as problem gambling behavior and problematic video game use. Compulsion is the tendency to repeatedly perform an action despite little pleasure or benefit, and despite harmful consequences. This happens because the person finds the behavior difficult to resist or pain relief.
Study participants were 165 regular video gamers and 130 regular gamblers living in Ecuador’s two largest cities. The average age of the gamblers was 33 years, and 52 of them were women. The average age of video gamers was 23 years old, and 39 of them were women.
To participate in this study, prospective participants had to be 18 years of age or older, not have been diagnosed with a neurodevelopmental, neurocognitive, or neurodegenerative disorder, and have regularly participated in video games or gambling at least twice a week for the past 12 months. Participants who reported no symptoms of Internet gaming disorder or gambling disorder were excluded from the analysis. Researchers noted that 54% of gamblers met diagnostic criteria for gambling disorder and 15% of gamers met diagnostic criteria for Internet gaming disorder.
Participants completed an online survey and reported demographic information, frequency of gaming and gambling activities, impulsivity, compulsiveness, and ratings of gambling and Internet gaming disorder symptoms.
Results showed that gamblers tended to exhibit more pronounced compulsive behavior compared to gamers. However, the two groups did not differ in mean levels of any of the five dimensions of impulsivity. Among the five dimensions of impulsivity, more salient positive and negative urgency were associated with higher compulsivity.
The researchers created a statistical model that predicts compulsive behavior based on impulsivity, age, gender, and whether a person is a gambler or video gamer. Results showed that positive urgency was a significant predictor in the entire sample.
However, when looking at the groups separately, positive urgency was a more significant predictor of compulsiveness in the gambler group than in the video gamer group. In contrast, among gamers, negative urgency was more strongly associated with obsession.
“The present findings indicate that although there is no overall difference in impulsivity between gamblers and gamers, compulsiveness is higher among gamblers and its association with dimensions of urgency differs by group,” the study authors concluded. “These results suggest that executive dysfunction and positive affect urgency play a greater role in gambling-related compulsions, whereas negative urgency and maladaptive regulation of distress are more prominent in gaming.”
The researchers explain that the association between negative urgency and gaming suggests that compulsive gaming functions primarily as a pain management strategy rather than a reward-seeking strategy. Conversely, the association between positive urgency and gambling is consistent with an established model of fronto-striatal dysfunction in which hypersensitivity to reward cues weakens voluntary control.
This study contributes to the scientific understanding of the link between obsessive-compulsiveness and impulsivity. However, it should be noted that the cross-sectional design of the study does not allow causal inferences to be drawn from the results. It is also limited by the fact that the two groups had very different levels of clinical severity, with a much higher proportion of gamblers meeting the disorder’s diagnostic cutoff than gamers.
The paper, “Differences in the relationship between impulsivity and compulsivity in video gamers and gamblers,” was authored by María Jara Rizzo, Diego Eraso Perez, Jose C. Perales, and Jose A. Rodas.
