Fleeing through the mind's eye: Desire thinking as a maladaptive coping mechanism among specific online activities

Desire thinking is defined as a voluntary cognitive activity aimed at imaginatively and verbally elaborating a future scenario of performing a desired behavior. Although not problematic per se, desire thinking can become dysfunctional if it is used to regulate negative mood states and due to its ability to induce craving. This study tests a mediation model where desire thinking is hypothesized to mediate the association between emotional reactivity and craving among specific online activities.

The study comprised an online survey that was completed by 925 participants who indicated that their first-choice online activity was one out of social-networks use, shopping, gaming, gambling, or pornography viewing. In this sample, a structural equation model was tested where negative emotional reactivity, desire thinking, and craving were latently modelled in this serial order.

Results indicated that higher levels in negative emotional reactivity significantly predicted higher desire thinking tendencies, which in turn significantly predicted higher cravings for online activities. The direct path between negative reactivity and craving was not significant. Further, our results support the two-factorial structure of a German version of the Desire Thinking Questionnaire (Caselli & Spada, 2011).

The findings show that desire thinking might be initiated as an attempt to regulate negative affective states. This highlights its possible role as a maladaptive coping mechanism in the context of specific online activities due to the resulting craving responses, which in turn could promote the emergence of unwanted behaviors.