Video Game Addiction, Its Risk Factors, and Relationships with the Big Five Personality Traits

Abstract

Video games have become the modern way of socialising and entertaining especially among teenagers and young adults. Studies have pointed out the negative outcomes of excessive gameplay. Personality, as one of the main influencers of behaviours, the relationship it holds with video game addiction should be investigated. Personalities are formed because of genetic and environmental influences and the most established classification is the big five models of personality: Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion (extroversion), Agreeableness and Neuroticism. Video game addiction falls under the category of behavioural addiction and is formed because of the dopamine effect. Flow state and the Zeigarnik effect are used to explain the mechanisms behind addiction. Some diagnostic symptoms are excessive playtime, preoccupation, and tolerance. People with relationship issues are more vulnerable to Video Game Addiction (VGA). For personality, neuroticism is positively correlated, and conscientiousness is negatively correlated with VGA. Extraversion and agreeableness are negatively correlated with VGA, but this depends on the game genres to an extent. Openness to experience has the least effect on video game addiction. For future studies, game genres are worth investigating as gamers with different personalities may prefer or dislike certain games, which lead to them being addicted or not addicted to this game, this may affect the accuracy of the results. Other factors such as psychopathological conditions and social background are also important.