Loscalzo Yura, Giannini Marco
University of Florence, School of Psychology, Department of Health Sciences, Via di San Salvi 12 - Padiglione 26, 50135 Florence, Italy.
Addict Behav Rep. 2025 Feb 27;21:100594. doi: 10.1016/j.abrep.2025.100594. eCollection 2025 Jun.
In the psychological literature, there has been a proliferation of new behavioral addictions, often biased by an aprioristic and confirmatory approach that applied the addiction framework without adequately considering other potential explanations of excessive behaviors. This position paper further extends the critiques previously pointed out in the literature by highlighting the methodological issues underlying the current behavioral addiction research and the need for future studies to avoid a confirmatory and aprioristic approach (whatever the etiological hypothesis). Analyzing repetitive behaviors in their own specifies could help find a balance between the risk of over-pathologizing common behaviors and not exploring new potential clinical disorders related to everyday (excessive) behaviors associated with functional impairment and deserving public health attention. Finally, we underline the value of recalling that if an existing diagnosis might explain the problematic behavior under consideration, a new clinical disorder should not be introduced in the literature.
在心理学文献中，新的行为成瘾现象激增，这往往受到一种先验性和确证性方法的影响，该方法应用成瘾框架时未充分考虑过度行为的其他潜在解释。本立场文件通过强调当前行为成瘾研究背后的方法学问题以及未来研究避免采用确证性和先验性方法（无论病因假设如何）的必要性，进一步扩展了文献中先前指出的批评。具体分析重复行为有助于在将常见行为过度病理化的风险与未探索与日常（过度）行为相关的新潜在临床疾病之间找到平衡，这些日常行为会导致功能损害且值得公共卫生关注。最后，我们强调值得铭记的一点是，如果现有诊断能够解释所考虑的问题行为，就不应在文献中引入新的临床疾病。
