1Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
2Institute of Psychology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
J Behav Addict. 2022 Aug 8;11(3):796-819. doi: 10.1556/2006.2022.00048. Print 2022 Sep 26.
The popularity of video gaming has generated significant interest in research methods to examine motivations for gaming. Current measures of gaming motives are limited by lack of scope and/or their applicability to specific game genres only. We aimed to create a comprehensive motivation inventory applicable to any gaming genre and to evaluate its psychometric properties in a large sample of highly engaged video gamers.
Stage 1 of this project involved a systematic review that generated the items for the Gaming Motivation Inventory (GMI). Stages 2-4 involved an evaluation of the psychometric properties of the GMI. A sample of 14,740 video gamers (89.3% male; mean age 24.1 years) were recruited via an online survey promoted by a popular gaming magazine.
In Stage 2, twenty-six gaming motives were identified, which clustered into six higher-order dimensions (Mastery, Immersion/Escapism, Competition, Stimulation, Social, Habit/Boredom). In Stage 3, construct validity of the six higher-order motives was assessed by associations with gaming-related, personality, and psychological variables. In Stage 4, the relationships between motives and depression symptoms and gaming disorder symptoms were explored. Although gaming motives had weak associations with gaming genres, they were moderately related to variables such as competitiveness, sociability, and positive and negative affect. Gaming disorder symptoms were directly predicted by depression symptoms and indirectly via Immersion/Escapism, Habit/Boredom, and Competition motives.
These findings support the notion that motives are one of the primary causes of gaming behavior and play an important role in predicting its problematic nature. The GMI is a psychometrically valid tool that will be useful for gaining insights into factors underlying gaming behaviors.
视频游戏的普及引发了人们对研究方法的极大兴趣，这些方法旨在探讨人们玩游戏的动机。目前用于测量游戏动机的方法存在范围有限以及仅适用于特定游戏类型的问题。本研究旨在创建一个适用于任何游戏类型的综合动机量表，并在大量高度投入的视频游戏玩家中评估其心理测量学特性。
该研究分为四个阶段。第一阶段为系统综述，生成游戏动机量表（GMI）的项目。第二至第四阶段评估了 GMI 的心理测量学特性。通过在一家流行游戏杂志上发布在线调查，共招募了 14740 名视频游戏玩家（89.3%为男性；平均年龄 24.1 岁）参与研究。
在第二阶段，确定了 26 种游戏动机，这些动机可分为六个高阶维度（掌握、沉浸/逃避、竞争、刺激、社交、习惯/无聊）。在第三阶段，通过与游戏相关的、人格和心理变量的关联来评估六个高阶动机的结构效度。在第四阶段，探讨了动机与抑郁症状和游戏障碍症状之间的关系。尽管游戏动机与游戏类型的相关性较弱，但它们与竞争、社交性以及积极和消极情绪等变量中度相关。抑郁症状直接预测了游戏障碍症状，而通过沉浸/逃避、习惯/无聊和竞争动机间接预测了游戏障碍症状。
这些发现支持了动机是游戏行为的主要原因之一的观点，并在预测游戏行为的问题性质方面发挥着重要作用。GMI 是一种具有心理测量学效度的工具，将有助于深入了解游戏行为的潜在因素。
