Social Psychological Aspects of Addiction to Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games

Marinova T.Y.
PhD in Biology, Dean of the Faculty of Social Psychology, Moscow State University of Psychology and Education, Moscow, Russia
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1062-1391
e-mail: tamarinova@mail.ru

Zaretskaya O.V.
Graduate student of the Faculty of Social Psychology of the Department of Theoretical Foundations of Social Psychology, Moscow State University of Psychology and Education, Moscow, Russia
e-mail: ovzaretskaya@mail.ru

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Online translation in english

The paper addresses the issue of how massively multiplayer online role¬playing games (MMORPG) affect the behavior of players. Basing on a series of research, the paper analyzes how massively multiplayer online role¬playing games are created and highlights their specifics that possibly contribute to the development of psychological addiction to such games. The authors describe the outcomes of their own research on motivation in persons with gaming addiction aged 18 and up, with over 1 year of gaming experience. These out-comes suggest that current traditional criteria developed for assessing gaming addiction cannot be applied to this particular form of addictive behavior.

Keywords: massively multiplayer online role-playing games, psychological addiction, addictive behavior, Internet resources, motivation

Column: Applied Research and Practice

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/sps.2015060308

For Reference

Marinova T.Y., Zaretskaya O.V. Social Psychological Aspects of Addiction to Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games . Sotsial'naya psikhologiya i obshchestvo = Social Psychology and Society, 2015. Vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 109–119. doi:10.17759/sps.2015060308. (In Russ., аbstr. in Engl.)

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