Abstract
Abstract An external locus of control (feeling low personal control over one’s life) has been linked with excessive/addictive behaviours, including problematic videogaming. The current study sought to determine whether this is driven by the opportunity for greater control over one’s environment within a videogame. Participants (n = 252, 59% males) completed a traditional locus of control scale, alongside a modified version assessing in-game feelings of control. Multiple linear regression analyses indicated that feeling less under the control of powerful others in-game than in the real world was a significant predictor of gaming frequency (standardised β = .31, p < .0005), while feeling comparatively more internal control in-game than in real life significantly predicted problematic gaming (standardised β = .17, p = .02). This demonstrates that locus of control in-game can diverge from that experienced in the real world, and the degree of divergence could be a risk factor for frequent and/or problematic gaming in some individuals.Citation
Lloyd, J. et al. (2019) ‘Locus of control and involvement in videogaming’, New Media & Society. doi: 10.1177/1461444819828308.Publisher
SageJournal
New Media and SocietyAdditional Links
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1461444819828308Type
Journal articleLanguage
enISSN
1461-4448ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1177/1461444819828308
Scopus Count
Collections
The following licence applies to the copyright and re-use of this item:
- Creative Commons
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States