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Published on: January 18, 2013
Why can't they stop playing? Relative deprivation and problematic Otome game behavior among adult women
Yongxuan Gao1, Zhengkai Wei2, Ruiting Shi2
1Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, City University of Macau, T233, Tai Fung Building, Avenida Padre Tomás Pereira, Taipa, Macau; School of Art and New Media, Guangzhou City Polytechnic, No.142, Kejiao Avenue, Zengcheng District, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.
Objective:
To examine the associations between relative deprivation and problematic Otome game behavior among adult female players, test the parallel mediating roles of player-character attachment and maladaptive cognition, and examine the separate moderating role of trait mindfulness.
Method:
An online cross-sectional survey was conducted among 433 Chinese adult female Otome gamers recruited through snowball sampling on Xiaohongshu and Weibo.
Results:
Relative deprivation was positively associated with problematic Otome game behavior, and both player-character attachment and maladaptive cognition showed significant indirect associations. Trait mindfulness was positively correlated with maladaptive cognition (r = 0.417) and problematic Otome game behavior (r = 0.510), whereas negative RD × TM interactions indicated that the positive RD-related associations with player-character attachment, maladaptive cognition, and problematic Otome game behavior became weaker as trait mindfulness increased.
Conclusion:
The findings suggest that problematic Otome game behavior may be associated with both player-character involvement and maladaptive gaming cognition. The mindfulness interactions indicate attenuation of RD-related slopes rather than a generally protective association of higher mindfulness. Given the cross-sectional and non-probability sampling design, causal interpretations should be avoided.
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