Reconsidering item response categories in gaming disorder symptoms measurement.

Gaming disorder (GD) screening often involves self-report survey measures to detect the presence of symptoms. Studies have shown that gamers' responses vary greatly across survey items. Some symptoms, such as preoccupation and tolerance, are frequently reported by highly engaged but non-problematic gamers, and therefore these symptoms are thought to lack specificity and are suggested to be less important in classification decisions. We argue that the influence of response categories (e.g., dichotomous responses, such as 'yes' or 'no'; or frequency categories, such as 'rarely' and 'often') on item responses has been relatively underexplored despite potentially contributing significantly to the psychometric performance of items and scales. In short, the type of item response may be just as important to symptom reporting as the content of survey questions. We propose some practical alternatives to currently used item categories across GD tools. Research should examine the performance of different response categories, including whether certain response categories aid respondents' comprehension and insight, and better capture pathological behaviours and harms.

Social chatbot use (e.g., ChatGPT) among individuals with social deficits: Risks and opportunities.

Social chatbots powered by artificial intelligence (AI) may be particularly appealing to individuals with social deficits or conditions that affect their social functioning. In this letter, we discuss some of the noteworthy characteristics of social chatbots and how they may influence adaptive and maladaptive behaviors, including the potential for 'dependency' on chatbots. We call for more independent studies to evaluate the potential developmental and therapeutic effects of this increasingly popular technology.

Gaming disorder and stigma-related judgements of gaming individuals: An online randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The inclusion of gaming disorder (GD) in the International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision (ICD-11) has generated scholarly debate, including claims about its potential stigmatizing effects on the wider gaming population. The present study aimed to estimate the effect of addiction-based and non-addiction-based conceptualizations of problem gaming on stigma of gamers. DESIGN: This preregistered experiment involved a 2 (health information: addiction-related or non-addiction-related) × 3 (vignette: problem, regular or casual gamer) randomized, between-subjects design. SETTING: An international sample of participants was recruited via Prolific in June and July 2021. PARTICIPANTS: Participants were eligible (n = 1228) if they were aged 35 to 50 years, played video games for no more than 6 hours per week and did not endorse DSM-5 or ICD-11 criteria for GD. INTERVENTION AND COMPARATOR: Participants were provided with an explanation of problem gaming as related to either an addictive disorder (i.e. 'addiction' explanation) or personal choice and lifestyle factors (i.e. 'non-addiction' explanation). MEASUREMENTS: The Attribution Questionnaire (AQ) and Universal Stigma Scale (USS) assessed stigma toward each gamer vignette. Vignettes described a problem gamer (with features of GD); a regular gamer (frequent gaming; some life interference); and a casual gamer (infrequent gaming; no life interference). FINDINGS: Problem gamer vignettes (mean [M] = 113.3; 95% CI = 111.5-115.4) received higher AQ stigma ratings than regular (M = 94.0; 95% CI = 91.9-95.9) and casual gamers (M = 80.1; 95% CI = 78.2-82.1). Although significant, the effect of health information type on AQ stigma ratings was negligible (addiction group [M = 97.6; 95% CI = 95.9-99.1], non-addiction group [M = 94.1; 95% CI = 92.6-95.8]). However, the addiction information group scored lower on USS blame and responsibility than the non-addiction information group with at least a small effect (99.1% confidence). CONCLUSIONS: Framing of problem gaming as an addictive disorder or non-addictive activity appears to have a negligible effect on stigma of different gamers among middle-age adults with minimal gaming experience. The concept of 'gaming addiction' seems unlikely to be an important influence on public stigma of gaming.