Family,School,and Peer Predictors Of Adolescent Internet Gaming Disorder

Internet gaming disorder（IGD）is one of the important global public health problems that threaten the sound development of adolescents’physical and mental health.Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders（DSM-5）defines IGD as a mental disorder that arouses the concern from scholars at home and abroad.A further study needed to be conducted.IGD refers to the uncontrollable,excessive,and compulsive playing of Internet games behavior that results the social and emotional problems.In order to develop more effective and reasonable interventions to prevent or reduce IGD among adolescents,it is imperative for researchers to further identify the influencing factors and underlying mechanism of IGD.Ecological system theory（Bronfenbrenner,1979,2006）emphasizes that individual development is influenced by environmental factors such as family,school,peer,as well as their interaction with individual factors.However,the current research of adolescent IGD mostly uses a cross-sectional study design,and only selected a few influencing factors.Based on the background factors such as important family（parental psychological control）,school（negative school climate）,peer（peer victimization）,individual（school engagement,intentional self-regulation）,this study used a one-year longitudinal study designed to examine the influencing factors and the mechanism of adolescent IGD.Specifically,guided by social control theory（Hirschi,1969）,study 1 aimed to examine the mediating role of school engagement in the relationship between parental psychological control,negative school climate,peer victimization and IGD.In addition,based on the organism-environment interaction model（Cummings,Davies,&Campbell,2002;Lerner et al.,2006）,study 2 aimed to examine the moderating role of intentional self-regulation in the mediating process of“parental psychological control,negative school climate,peer victimization→school engagement→IGD among adolescents”.Study 1 and study 2 used the same sample.A total of 741 students(Mean_age=11.29 years,SD=1.56,male=49.9%)were selected from four public elementary schools and junior middle schools in Guangzhou,Zhaoqing and other regions of Guangdong Province,China,utilizing convenience sampling techniques.We conducted a one-year longitudinal design.Data collected every six months at a total of three time points.The adolescent self-reporting method was used to measure the variables of adolescents IGD,parental psychological control,negative school climate,peer victimization,school engagement,and intentional self-regulation,and so on.Study 1 indicated that T2 school engagement played a mediating role in the longitudinal association between T1 negative school climate and T3 IGD,as well as the longitudinal association between T1 peer victimization and T3 IGD.However,T2 school engagement could not mediated the longitudinal association between T1 parental psychological control and T3 IGD.Moreover,study 2 found that T1 intentional self-regulation could significantly moderated the mediating path of“T1 peer victimization→T2 school engagement”.Specifically,the mediation effect was only significant for adolescents with low levels of intentional self-regulation,but not for adolescents with high levels of intentional self-regulation.In addition,T1 intentional self-regulation could not play a moderating role in the mediating path of“T1 parental psychological control→T2 school engagement”and“T1negative school climate→T2 school engagement”.According to the ecological system theory,social control theory and the organism-environment interaction model,the present study examined the predictive effect of parental psychological control,negative school climate,peer victimization on IGD among adolescent,and the mediating effects of school engagement as well as the moderating effects of intentional self-regulation,which finally obtained some valuable conclusions.First of all,this study constructively verified that negative school climate and peer victimization are important risky predictors of adolescent IGD.Second,school engagement is an important mediator that negative school climate,peer victimization affects adolescent IGD.Third,intentional self-regulation is an important protective factor to buffer the risk effect of peer victimization on school engagement and adolescent IGD.All these findings provide an important scientific basis to develop effective interventions to prevent IGD among adolescent.