Beyond gambling: the dangers of analogistic reasoning in addiction science, and how loot box psychology should create its own unique theory

IF 1.9 3区 医学 Q2 SOCIAL ISSUES Addiction Research & Theory Pub Date : 2023-11-08 DOI:10.1080/16066359.2023.2279082
Philip Newall
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Abstract

AbstractAs in other areas of science, understanding in the addictions can progress by analogy, by taking concepts from a relatively well-understood area and applying them to another domain. This process helped increase our understanding of gambling, by using prior insights from substance-based addictions, and gambling has, in turn, served as an analogy for loot boxes: gambling-liked elements in video games. Although this could be a good way to make rapid initial advances, it could also limit our ability in the long-run to produce a complete understanding of the new area of inquiry. In this think piece I argue that these conceptual links did in fact limit our understanding of gambling in several ways, and that the same pattern is now becoming apparent with loot boxes. Although loot box expenditure correlates robustly with disordered gambling severity, it does not appear to correlate strongly with impulsivity, a key driver of disordered gambling symptomology. People also often gamble to try to win money, but this motivation is rarely observed with loot boxes. Instead, I argue that the enjoyment and meaning that gamers derive from games is a core motivator for loot box expenditure. Video games can bring enjoyment both directly and via the social connections they can help create, and these are motivations seen less frequently in gambling. This example can act as a warning to addiction science on the risks of proceeding via analogy too strictly, and of the need to consider the unique context of each potentially addictive behavior of interest.Keywords: Video gamesloot boxesaddiction psychologyvideo gaming Disclosure statementPhilip Newall is a member of the Advisory Board for Safer Gambling – an advisory group of the Gambling Commission in Great Britain, and in 2020 was a special advisor to the House of Lords Select Committee Enquiry on the Social and Economic Impact of the Gambling Industry. In the last three years, Philip Newall has contributed to research projects funded by the Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling, Clean Up Gambling, Gambling Research Australia, NSW Responsible Gambling Fund, and the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation. Philip Newall has received travel and accommodation funding from Alberta Gambling Research Institute, and received open access fee funding from Gambling Research Exchange Ontario.Ethical approvalThis paper did not require ethics board approval.Notes1 The cited paper and most other literature in this field uses the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI); in line with common present usage, I will use the term “disordered gambling” instead of “problem gambling”.
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超越赌博:成瘾科学中类比推理的危险,以及战利品箱心理学应该如何创造自己独特的理论
与其他科学领域一样,对成瘾的理解可以通过类比来推进,即从一个相对较好理解的领域中获取概念,并将其应用于另一个领域。这一过程帮助我们加深了对赌博的理解(游戏邦注:通过使用基于物质成瘾的先前见解),而赌博反过来又充当了战利品盒的类比:电子游戏中的赌博元素。虽然这可能是一种快速取得初步进展的好方法,但从长远来看,它也可能限制我们对新的研究领域产生全面理解的能力。在这篇文章中,我认为这些概念上的联系确实在某些方面限制了我们对赌博的理解,同样的模式现在也出现在战利品箱中。尽管战利品箱消费与赌博紊乱的严重程度密切相关,但它似乎与冲动性(赌博紊乱症状的关键驱动因素)并没有很强的相关性。人们也经常为了赢钱而赌博,但这种动机很少出现在战利品箱中。相反地,我认为玩家从游戏中获得的乐趣和意义才是他们购买战利品箱的核心动机。电子游戏既可以直接带来乐趣,也可以通过它们所创造的社交关系带来乐趣,而这些动机在赌博中并不常见。这个例子可以作为对成瘾科学的一个警告,即过于严格地进行类比的风险,以及需要考虑每种潜在成瘾行为的独特背景。披露声明菲利普·纽瓦尔是英国赌博委员会的一个咨询小组——安全赌博咨询委员会的成员,并于2020年担任上议院特别委员会关于赌博行业的社会和经济影响调查的特别顾问。在过去的三年里,Philip Newall为赌博研究学术论坛、清理赌博、澳大利亚赌博研究、新南威尔士州负责任赌博基金和维多利亚负责任赌博基金会资助的研究项目做出了贡献。Philip Newall获得了艾伯塔省赌博研究所的旅行和住宿资助,并获得了安大略省赌博研究交流中心的开放访问费资助。伦理审批这篇论文不需要伦理委员会的批准。注1引用的论文和该领域的大多数其他文献使用问题赌博严重性指数(PGSI);根据目前的常用用法,我将使用“无序赌博”一词来代替“问题赌博”。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
5.40
自引率
6.90%
发文量
45
期刊介绍: Since being founded in 1993, Addiction Research and Theory has been the leading outlet for research and theoretical contributions that view addictive behaviour as arising from psychological processes within the individual and the social context in which the behaviour takes place as much as from the biological effects of the psychoactive substance or activity involved. This cross-disciplinary journal examines addictive behaviours from a variety of perspectives and methods of inquiry. Disciplines represented in the journal include Anthropology, Economics, Epidemiology, Medicine, Sociology, Psychology and History, but high quality contributions from other relevant areas will also be considered.
期刊最新文献
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