Place branding: Religion in shaping the three-dimensional essence of a city brand through stakeholder engagement.

This study explores the role of religion in engaging stakeholders in branding a place on social media and unmasks what implications this has for (re)constructing the three-dimensional meanings of a place brand. Using the content analysis method to examine the case of Saudi Arabia, it probes how the key stakeholder groups of the government and the residents structure and interact with the narratives of the cities-Jeddah and Riyadh-on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The results show the Islamic religion serves as a powerful tool for motivating the residents to engage in the government-led city branding initiatives at the individual level. However, the strategy of dwelling on religion to mobilize resident engagement at the individual level towards the social level with the aim of growing resources in support of social development should be reassessed within a dynamic social system. Theoretically, the proposed framework of religion city branding expands the scope of stakeholder engagement in place branding research through the integration with the driver of religion, especially unveiling how religious factors shape the personality traits of a place brand. It contributes to the practical sense that religious elements might be deployed by the key stakeholder groups of the government and residents in city branding initiatives, which potentially contributes to their relationship and the engagement of residents in co-creating a place brand with the government. This Saudi-focused study, therefore, possesses significance for place branding practices in Middle Eastern countries and beyond.

Translating the user-avatar bond into depression risk: A preliminary machine learning study.

Research has shown a link between depression risk and how gamers form relationships with their in-game figure of representation, called avatar. This is reinforced by literature supporting that a gamer's connection to their avatar may provide broader insight into their mental health. Therefore, it has been argued that if properly examined, the bond between a person and their avatar may reveal information about their current or potential struggles with depression offline. To examine whether the connection with an individuals' avatars may reveal their risk for depression, longitudinal data from 565 adults/adolescents (Mage = 29.3 years, SD = 10.6) were evaluated twice (six months apart). Participants completed the User-Avatar-Bond [UAB] scale and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale to measure avatar bond and depression risk. A series of tuned and untuned artificial intelligence [AI] classifiers analyzed their responses concurrently and prospectively. This allowed the examination of whether user-avatar bond can provide cross-sectional and predictive information about depression risk. Findings revealed that AI models can learn to accurately and automatically identify depression risk cases, based on gamers' reported UAB, age, and length of gaming involvement, both at present and six months later. In particular, random forests outperformed all other AIs, while avatar immersion was shown to be the strongest training predictor. Study outcomes demonstrate that UAB can be translated into accurate, concurrent, and future, depression risk predictions via trained AI classifiers. Assessment, prevention, and practice implications are discussed in the light of these results.

Masculine men do not like feminine wording: The effectiveness of gendered wording in health promotion leaflets in the UK.

Following mixed-methods sequential design and drawing on the message-audience congruence concept and homophily theory, across three studies in the UK, we examined the effect of gendered wording and endorser's gender on the effectiveness of leaflets promoting walking. In Study 1, a mall-intercept study achieved 247 completed questionnaires. Results demonstrated that men and women indicated the highest behavioural intentions for communal wording presented by a male endorser. However, pairwise comparisons revealed that when the wording of the advert was agentic and the endorser was male, males indicated significantly higher scores of behavioural intentions compared with females. Attitude towards the ad for women was highest for communal wording/female endorser; for men it was for agentic wording/male endorser. In Study 2, consumers' views towards the gendered content were explored in 20 semi-structured interviews. In study 3 we examined the impact of the respondent's gender role identity on gendered content effectiveness. Overall, when controlled for level of gender role identity, only masculine males evaluated leaflets featuring communal wording negatively which suggests that wording matters only for masculine males, but not for other men and women. Theoretically, we identified that gender-based message-respondent congruence is not a necessary aspect of communications to be effective, except for one group: masculine males. Our study identified dominant gender role identity as a factor that explained respondents' preferences for presented stimuli. Specifically, males who display masculine gender role identity differ in evaluations of communal wording from all other groups. Social and commercial marketers who target men and women with exercise-related services should consider the use of agentic wording endorsed by a male endorser when targeting masculine men to increase the likelihood of eliciting positive attitudes towards the communication. However, such distinctions should not be associated with differences in women's evaluations or men who do not report masculine gender role identity.

Online Gambling Disorder Questionnaire (OGD-Q): An item r'esponse theory examination.

Gambling disorder behaviours, such as one's preoccupation with gambling and/or mood modification due to gambling, have been proposed to differ in their diagnostic weight/importance, especially when informing diagnostic scales. Such potential differences are imperative to be considered to improve assessment accuracy. The latter is particularly important in the light of the rapidly increasing gambling opportunities offered online. To contribute to this area of knowledge, the current study assessed an online adult community sample (N = 968, Mage  = 29.5 years, SDage  = 9.36 years) regarding their responses on the Online Gambling Disorder Questionnaire (OGD-Q). Item response theory (IRT) procedures examined the psychometric properties of the instrument, at both the item and the scale level. Results indicated that the OGD-Q demonstrated good capacity to reliably assess problem gambling and differentiate between individuals at similar levels of the trait, particularly between 1 and 3 SDs above the mean. The findings also showed OGD-Q components/items possess varying discrimination capacities, whilst they also differ in reliability across respondents with different levels of disordered gambling behaviours. Thus, it is supported that consideration is required regarding the differential weighting of one's item responses in the assessment procedure, taking concurrently into account their severity of disordered gambling behaviours.

Investigating gaming disorder and individual differences in gaming motives among professional and non-professional gamers: An empirical study.

The present study investigates the relationship between Gaming Disorder (GD) and individual differences in gaming motives and how they might differ between three groups of gamers. The first group stated to be professional gamers (n = 129; 2,49%), the second group consisted of non-professional gamers, who intended to become professional gamers (n = 646; 12,45%), and the third group included the remaining non-professional gamers (n = 4,412; 85,06%). Gaming motives were assessed via the Motives for Online Gaming Questionnaire (MOGQ), and GD was assessed with the Gaming Disorder Test (GDT). Results revealed that professional gamers and those intending to become professional were very similar regarding their gaming motive expressions. In contrast, non-professional gamers without esports ambitions scored significantly lower on all gaming motives, except for the recreational motive which was comparable across all groups. Several consistent gaming motive-GD associations appeared across the three gamer groups, with the most robust finding being that higher escapism motive expressions relate to greater GDT scores. The present study sheds light on an emerging field of research attempting to better understand competitive gaming in the context of esports.

Improving the Health of Emerging Adult Gamers-A Scoping Review of Influences.

Emerging adults (EAs), defined as adults aged 18 to 25, remain a difficult group to engage in healthy behaviours (including positive dieting and eating patterns). The environmental elements that influence the health behaviours of EAs have been studied. However, the literature is mixed on how online game environments, including eSports and game streaming, can be used to positively engage EAs. In this scoping review, we identified and analysed research on online games, EAs, and dietary patterns to create a behavioural ecological map of influences that intersect with EAs through online games. In total, 75 studies were found, identifying 23 influences that intersect with EAs through their online game use. ESports organisations, eSports athletes, and content creators may be areas of future research (and intervention) as these factors could positively influence the dietary behaviours of EAs (through online games).

Disordered gaming, loneliness, and family harmony in gamers before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The aim of this study was to investigate if and how disordered gaming, loneliness, and family relations have changed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic (from 2019 to 2021), and whether there were any changes in the association between these variables across three samples of gamers (for each respective year). Samples from 2019, 2020, and 2021 were matched by using propensity score matching across socio-demographic characteristics. The total effective sample comprised 897 gamers (N = 299 per year). These samples were compared in terms of disordered gaming - separately as Gaming Disorder (GD; WHO framework) and Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD; APA framework), loneliness, and family harmony scores with analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs), with age and gender as covariates. Steiger tests were used for correlation differences testing. ANCOVAs showed that while GD and IGD scores have increased significantly during the pandemic years, loneliness and family harmony did not change significantly. Furthermore, the correlation differences tests indicated that the correlations between both IGD and GD with loneliness as well as poorer family harmony have increased during the pandemic years. This study provides empirical evidence that the well-being of gamers might have been negatively affected during the COVID-19 pandemic. While loneliness and family harmony did not increase, the stronger correlations between Gaming Disorder and other variables might suggest that gaming may have been used to cope with loneliness and poorer family harmony.

The interplay between time spent gaming and disordered gaming: A large-scale world-wide study.

BACKGROUND: 'Gaming Disorder' (GD) is now an officially recognized mental health disorder according to the World Health Organization (WHO) framework while 'Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) remains as a tentative disorder as per the American Psychiatric Association (APA) framework. Although both GD and IGD reflect disordered gaming tendencies marked by excessive time spent gaming, little is known about the extent to which too much time spent gaming becomes particularly problematic. Moreover, emerging research has highlighted the need to further explore how both disordered gaming frameworks perform in the assessment and estimation of disordered gaming symptoms and related behaviors. METHODS: The primary aim of the present study was to shed light on the complex relationship between time spent gaming and disordered gaming and to provide prevalence estimates of disordered gaming across the WHO and APA frameworks. This study adopted an online survey methodology and a cross-sectional design in a large sample of 123,262 eligible gamers from 168 countries. RESULTS: The results obtained indicated that the prevalence rate of disordered gaming among the participants was smaller when assessed with the WHO framework (i.e., 1.96%) in comparison to the APA framework (i.e., 4.97%). Additionally, the relationship between time spent gaming and disordered gaming varied, and disordered gaming was associated on average with 34.53 h of gaming a week within the APA framework (i.e., with at least five criteria endorsed; higher gaming-time-averages for those endorsing more criteria) and an average of 40.13 h a week within the WHO framework (i.e., with all criteria endorsed). CONCLUSIONS: The relationship between weekly time spent gaming and disordered gaming is multifaceted and varies according to the diagnostic framework adopted. The results highlight the need for further refinement at the diagnostic level in regard to disordered gaming.

Network analyses of internet gaming disorder symptoms and their links with different types of motivation.

The study used regularized partial correlation network analysis (EBICglasso) to examine the structure of DSM-5 internet gaming disorder (IGD) symptoms (network 1); and the associations of the IGD symptoms in the network with different types of motivation as defined in the self-determination theory i.e., intrinsic motivation (engaging in an activity for something unrelated to the activity), identified regulation (engaging in the activity because it aligns with one's values and/or goals), external regulation (engagement in activity being driven by external rewards and/or approval), and amotivation (engaging in an activity without often understanding why) (network 2). Participants were 968 adults from the general community. They completed self-rating questionnaires covering IGD symptoms and different types of motivation. The findings for network 1 showed mostly positive connections between the symptoms within the IGD network. The most central symptom was loss of control, followed by continuation, withdrawal symptoms, and tolerance. In general, these symptoms were more strongly connected with each other than with the rest of the IGD symptoms. The findings for network 2 showed that the different types of motivation were connected differently with the different IGD symptoms. For instance, the likeliest motivation for the preoccupation and escape symptoms is intrinsic motivation, and for negative consequences, it is low identified regulation. Overall, the findings showed a novel understanding of the structure of the IGD symptoms, and the motivations underlying them. The clinical implications of the findings for assessment and treatment of IGD are discussed.

Is the proposed distinction of gaming disorder into a predominantly online vs. offline form meaningful? Empirical evidence from a large German speaking gamer sample.

In the eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), Gaming Disorder (GD) is distinguished between disordered gaming occurring predominantly online, offline, and unspecified. Currently, no study has investigated whether such a distinction is meaningful in diagnosing disordered gaming. Therefore, a large group of gamers with varied tendencies towards disordered gaming was recruited to examine this issue. A large sample (N = 2,768) was recruited and data were collected on disordered gaming, along with information on their preferred gaming mode and device used to play. The present study shows that the distinction between online and offline gaming mode proposed by the WHO is meaningful because online gamers presented with the highest disordered gaming scores followed by mixed gamers (those stating to equally prefer online and offline gaming), and offline gamers. Finally, it was also observed that the type of device for gaming used associated with disordered gaming levels. Specifically, those reporting mostly to use their desktop computer for gaming showed the highest disordered gaming scores. The present study lends empirical support for the consideration of both gaming mode and gaming device in the study of disordered gaming.

Empirical evidence for robust personality-gaming disorder associations from a large-scale international investigation applying the APA and WHO frameworks.

Disordered gaming has gained increased medical attention and was recently included in the eleventh International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) by the World Health Organization (WHO) after its earlier inclusion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (fifth revision) (DSM-5) as an emerging disorder by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Although many studies have investigated associations between personality and disordered gaming, no previous research compared the differential associations between personality and disordered gaming with time spent gaming. Due to the novelty of the WHO diagnostic framework for disordered gaming, previous research focused mainly on the associations between personality and disordered gaming in relation to the APA framework. Beyond that, these studies are generally limited by small sample sizes and/or the lack of cross-cultural emphasis due to single-country sampling. To address these limitations, the present study aimed to investigate the associations between personality and gaming behavior in a large and culturally heterogeneous sample (N = 50,925) of individuals from 150 countries. The results obtained suggested that low conscientiousness and high neuroticism were robustly associated with disordered gaming across both the APA and WHO frameworks. Interestingly, personality associations with weekly time spent gaming were smaller. The findings of the present study suggest that personality is of higher importance to predict disordered gaming compared to weekly time spent gaming.

Where Do Online Games Fit into the Health Behaviour Ecology of Emerging Adults: A Scoping Review.

Online video games are a common pastime for emerging adults (EAs). EAs are an age group that is of interest in health communication because habits formed during this life stage can cause or prevent disease later in life. Guided by three research questions, this scoping review identifies the current state of research into socio-ecological influences on physical activity and diet behaviours of EAs. The review also examines the role that online video games play within this behavioural ecology. In total, 112 articles were found that focused on behavioural ecological influences for physical activity and diet behaviour among EAs. Seven of these articles focused on the impact of online video games, although only in conjunction with their influence on physical activity, identifying a gap in understanding the influence of online games on diet. Results show that online video games are currently under-researched in terms of impacts on physical activity and diet despite the prevalence of the use of these games within the EA cohort.

Proteus Effect Profiles: how Do they Relate with Disordered Gaming Behaviours?

Gamers represent themselves in online gaming worlds through their avatars. The term "Proteus Effect" (PE) defines the potential influences of the gamers' avatars on their demeanour, perception and conduct and has been linked with excessive gaming. There is a significant lack of knowledge regarding likely distinct PE profiles and whether these could be differentially implicated with disordered gaming. A normative group of 1022 World of Warcraft (WoW) gamers were assessed in the present study (Mean age = 28.60 years). The Proteus Effect Scale (PES) was used to evaluate the possible avatar effect on gamers' conduct, and the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale-Short-Form was used to examine gaming disorder behaviors. Latent class profiling resulted in three distinct PE classes, 'non-influenced-gamers' (NIGs), 'perception-cognition-influenced-gamers' (PCIGs), and 'emotion-behaviour-influenced-gamers' (EBIGs). The NIGs reported low rates across all PES items. The PCIGs indicated higher avatar influence in their perception-experience but did not report being affected emotionally. The EBIGs indicated significantly higher avatar influence in their emotion and behaviour than the other two classes but reported stability in their perception of aspects independent of their avatar. Gaming disorder behaviours were reduced for the NIGs and progressively increased for the PCIGs and the EBIGs.

Exploring the Role of Social Media Use Motives, Psychological Well-Being, Self-Esteem, and Affect in Problematic Social Media Use.

Given recent advances in technology, connectivity, and the popularity of social media platforms, recent literature has devoted great attention to problematic Facebook use. However, exploring the potential predictors of problematic social media use beyond Facebook use has become paramount given the increasing popularity of multiple alternative platforms. In this study, a sample of 584 social media users (M age = 32.28 years; 67.81% female) was recruited to complete an online survey assessing sociodemographic characteristics, patterns, and preferences of social media use, problematic social media use (PSMU), social media use motives, psychological well-being, self-esteem, and positive and negative affect. Results indicated that 6.68% (n = 39) of all respondents could be potentially classed as problematic users. Moreover, further analysis indicated that intrapersonal motive (ß = 0.38), negative affect (ß = 0.22), daily social media use (ß = 0.18), surveillance motive (ß = 0.12), and positive affect (ß = -0.09) each predicted PSMU. These variables accounted for about 37% of the total variance in PSMU, with intrapersonal motive driving the greatest predictive contribution, over and above the effects of patterns of social media use and sociodemographic variables. These findings contribute to the increasing literature on PSMU. The results of this study are discussed in light of the existing literature on PSMU.

Laxer Clinical Criteria for Gaming Disorder May Hinder Future Efforts to Devise an Efficient Diagnostic Approach: A Tree-Based Model Study.

Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) has been recognized in May 2013 and can be evaluated using the criteria developed by American Psychiatric Association (APA). The present study investigated the role each IGD criteria plays in diagnosing disordered gaming. A total of 3,377 participants (mean age 20 years, SD = 4.3 years) participated in the study. The data collected was scrutinized to detect patterns of IGD using Conditional Inference Tree (Ctree), a sophisticated machine algorithm. Participants provided basic sociodemographic information and completed the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale-Short-Form (IGDS9-SF). The results identified classes of IGD-related symptoms, indicating that endorsing 'withdrawal' and 'loss of control' increases the probability of disordered gaming by 77.77% while endorsement of 'withdrawal', 'loss of control' and 'negative consequences' increases the probability of disordered gaming by 26.66%. Moreover, lack of endorsement of 'withdrawal' and endorsement of 'preoccupation' increases the likelihood of disordered gaming by 7.14%. Taken together, the results obtained illustrate that different IGD criteria can present with different clinical weighing as unique diagnostic roles in the development of disordered gaming can be evidenced by each criterion. Moreover, the present findings help inform future revisions of diagnostic manuals and helps enhancing the assessment of IGD in the future. Additional research and clinical implications are discussed.

Psychopathological Symptoms and Gaming Motives in Disordered Gaming-A Psychometric Comparison between the WHO and APA Diagnostic Frameworks.

BACKGROUND: 'Gaming Disorder' (GD) has received increased medical attention and official recognition from both the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Although these two medical organizations have independently developed promising clinical diagnostic frameworks to assess disordered gaming, little is known about how these frameworks compare at different psychometric levels in terms of producing consistent outcomes in the assessment of GD. METHODS: A sample of 1429 German gamers (Meanage = 29.74 years; SD = 12.37 years) completed an online survey including measures on different psychopathological symptoms (depression, loneliness and attention problems), gaming motives and disordered gaming according to the WHO and APA frameworks. RESULTS: The findings suggest the existence of minor discrepancies in the estimation of prevalence rates of GD according among the two frameworks. Nevertheless, both diagnostic frameworks are fairly consistent in the psychometric prediction of GD in relation to gaming motives and psychopathological symptoms. The findings underscore the role of key gaming motives as risk factors and protective factors across both diagnostic frameworks. Finally, the study provides support for the WHO diagnostic framework for GD and its measurement with the German Gaming Disorder Test (GDT). The findings and their implications are further discussed in terms of clinical relevance.

Psychometric assessment of the Internet Gaming Disorder diagnostic criteria: An Item Response Theory study.

Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) has been recognized by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) as a tentative disorder in the latest fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). In order to advance research on IGD, the APA has suggested that further research on the nine IGD criteria to investigate its clinical and empirical feasibility is necessary. The aim of the present study was to develop the Polish the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale-Short-Form (IGDS9-SF) and scrutinize the nine IGD criteria empirically. To achieve this, the newly developed IGDS9-SF was examined using a wide range of psychometric methods, including a polytomous Item Response Theory (IRT) analysis to evaluate the measurement performance of the nine IGD criteria. A sample of 3377 gamers (82.7% male, mean age 20 years, SD = 4.3 years) was recruited online for the present study. Overall, the findings obtained confirmed that suitability of the Polish IGDS9-SF to assess IGD amongst Polish gamers given the adequate levels of validity and reliability found. The IRT analysis revealed that the IGDS9-SF is a suitable tool to measure IGD levels above the average; however, criteria "continuation" (item 6), "deception" (item 7), and "escape" (item 8) presented with poor fit. Taken together, these results suggest that some of the diagnostic criteria may present with a different clinical weighting towards final diagnosis of IGD. The implications of these findings are further discussed.