LHSI Project
PRESENTATION Overview Video
Summary
My LHSI experience took place with the IU school of Medicine’s Media and Development Lab, led by Dr. Tom Hummer, which is focused on the intersection of digital media use and brain development, including understanding the positive and negative influences of media use in children. I am helping out with a study that examines the use of virtual reality to improve social perspective taking in youth (9-12 years old) with disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs). Children and adolescents with DBDs typically have challenges with social perspective taking, or their ability to understand a different point of view, which can contribute to aggressive behaviors and poor empathy. My role in the lab is to check and organize data, help recruit participants, check each participant’s virtual scenarios, perform literature reviews, shadow professionals, and lastly, test and provide feedback for our virtual reality programs.
As part of this study, our participants complete multiple surveys about their media use and motivations for playing video games. For my own small project, I decided to examine how responses on the Video Game Motivation and Desires survey (VGMD), which measures different gaming attitudes, motives and experiences, was related to different facets of impulsivity, measured with the UPPS impulsivity survey. In addition, I am examining whether children with DBDs or with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have different reasons for playing video games.
Goals/objectives:
To have a better understanding of digital media use in children and adolescents with DBD or ADHD, to better understand these populations and their behaviors in everyday life.
To examine how aspects of impulsivity are connected to motivations of children to play video games.
To identify new manners to improve social perspective taking in youth.
To develop and assess new innovative therapeutic options for children and adolescents with behavior disorders
Background
Children and adolescents with DBDs are characterized by defiant and aggressive behaviors
ADHD is a disorder that makes it difficult for a person to pay attention and control impulsive behaviors. A person with ADHD may also be restless and almost constantly active.
DBD and ADHD are associated with negative short- and long-term outcomes, including poor academic performance, drug use, and criminal behaviors.
Impulsivity, the tendency to act without thinking, is common in youth with DBD and ADHD, leading to problematic and risky behaviors, (Geurten et al., 2018).
Negative urgency is acting rashly when experiencing intense negative emotions, and positive urgency is acting rashly when experiencing intense positive emotions. Urgency is associated with long-term issues, including problems with gambling, alcohol use, and eating disorders, (Billieux et al., 2015).
Media use patterns at early ages may provide additional insight into behavioral and emotional regulation in these youth and may highlight a manner in which to provide interventions at an early age (Hilgard et al., 2013).
By understanding how DBD, ADHD, and impulsivity factors are connected to why children play video games, we can better characterize motivations and interests of children at a young age, and we can develop media-based treatments that engage youth.
For instance, we can develop better digital media environments to give them a new way of thinking about other children’s viewpoints, in order to improve their social perspective taking and promote prosocial behaviors.
Finding ways to improve social perspective taking should allow children and adolescents to better understand other people's thinking and intentions, leading them to be more socially aware of their actions and increasing their empathy towards others.
Materials and methods
Parents and children completed electronic surveys prior to any virtual reality procedures. These surveys were similar to the two surveys used for this project along with demographic questions. Parents also filled a survey on their childs’ overall electronic media use. In addition, psychiatric diagnoses for participants were determined either with a clinical interview or by completion of the parent-report BACS-2 survey.
We compiled and organized demographic data and survey data from two separate research projects which were collected by Dr. Hummer’s research, all from youth ages 9-13 years old. (n=62, M=40, F=21). For a more detailed demographic data, Table 1. (When looking at the type of disorder and throughout this project please remember that ADHD and DBD can be seen together in the same participant or sometimes participants might only be diagnosed with one or the other). We focused specifically on two surveys: the Video Game Motivation and Desires survey (VGMD) and the UPPS impulsivity scale. The VGMD measures different gaming attitudes, motives and experiences across ten subscales. These ten subscales are Story, Violent Catharsis, Violent Reward, Social Interaction, Escapism, Loss-Aversion, Customization, Arousal, Grinding/Completion, and Autonomy/Exploration. For each question children indicate how strongly they agree with thirty statements on a five-point scale (three items per subscale). Click on the button below to learn more about each subscale. The other survey is the UPPS impulsivity survey, which measures five different facets of impulsivity: Sensation Seeking, Lack of Perseverance, Negative Urgency, Positive Urgency, and Lack of Premeditation. The UPPS survey has four answer choices for each question, indicating how much each statement is like them. Click on the button below to learn more about each subscale.
Table 1
We calculated VGMD and UPPS subscale scores for each child. Then we examined VGMD subscale scores between youth with DBD and without DBD, as well as with youth with ADHD and without ADHD. We compared the means by doing two separate independent t-test for participants with DBD vs. without DBD and the second for participants with ADHD vs. no ADHD. We used the p < .05 to identify significant differences. To measure the relationship between the two surveys, we calculated bivariate Pearson correlations between all subscales from both surveys. We used the p< 0.05 to identify a significant relationship. We specifically focused on the relationship between positive and negative urgency to the motivations of video game play. Negative urgency is acting rashly when experiencing intense negative emotions, and positive urgency is acting rashly when experiencing intense positive emotions. Our focus for this was to see if these impulsivity factors are connected to motivations of these children to play video games.
Results
We gathered data from 62 adolescents, 41 of which were males and 21 were females (n=62, M=41, F=21). We found that children with DBD had lower (t= 3.362 p = 0.001) Story subscale. No significant differences were found between any other VGMD data between children with DBD vs. without DBD. Although, there was a trend for higher Customization in the DBD group (t= -1.831 p = 0.072). The rest of the p values were> 0.2; Figure 1. There was more significance found between children with ADHD vs. those without. Children with ADHD were lower (t= 3.151 p = 0.003) for the Story subscale. In addition, children with ADHD were higher (t= -0.466 p = 0.002) for the Violence Catharsis subscale. The rest of the p values for children with ADHD vs. without were p>0.1.
Next, we looked at the media use indicated by the parent for children with DBD vs. without (t= -1.619 p = 0.111), which indicated that children with DBD vs.without did not differ in their weekly media exposure. We found that children with ADHD are higher (t= -4.431 p < 0.001) for their weekly media exposure. Children with ADHD tend to play video games more than those who do not have ADHD.
From the UPPS survey, urgency is the tendency to act rashly when experiencing intense emotions. Story and positive urgency were negatively correlated at (r=-0.466, p=0.001). Story and Negative Urgency were negatively correlated at a (r=-0.525, p<0.001); Figure 2. Violent Reward and Positive Urgency were positively correlated at a (r=0.410, p=0.003); Figure 3. Escapism and Negative Urgency were positively correlated at (r=0.352, p=0.012). Figure 4. Loss-Aversion and Negative Urgency were positively correlated at (r=0.477, p<0.001) Figure 5. No other significant correlations were found between any urgencies and game motivations.
Figure 1
Figure 2
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Figure 5
Conclusion
We found that children with DBD reported lower scores for the Story subscale, indicating that children with DBD care less about how the story develops compared to children without DBD. No significant differences were found between any other VGMD data for children with DBD vs. without DBD. Although, there was a trend for higher Customization in the DBD group, which indicates that children with DBD are more likely to be interested in creative pursuits like building their own house or building an avatar. There was more significance found between children with ADHD vs. without ADHD. We found that children with ADHD are lower for the Story subscale, indicating that children with ADHD care less about how the story develops compared to children without ADHD. Children with ADHD are higher for the Violence Catharsis subscale, indicating that children with ADHD like to play video games to release negative moods and aggression more than children without ADHD.
Children with DBD did not differ in their weekly media exposure from children without DBD. This indicates that children without DBD would spend around the same amount of time on electronics as children with DBD. We found that children with ADHD spend significantly more time being exposed to electronic media compared to those without ADHD. This could be due to their constant insatiable behavioral action tendencies and impulsive behaviors.
Based on the correlations, we found that children who are high in both positive and negative urgency have less interest in how the storyline of a video game develops. Higher positive urgency is related to committing violence in video games to provide them with positive or thrilling emotions such as satisfaction or power. As for negative urgency, we found that children with higher scores are more likely to enjoy video games to regulate their negative moods and aggressions as a way of escaping from daily life frustrations. Lastly, children with higher negative urgency are more likely to enjoy games that challenge them; their losses are affecting them more than their wins, and they are able to let out that frustration into those video game play.
This project focused on the investigation of video game motivations and the role of impulsivity in adolescents. For future research, the video game survey should be investigated with more behavioral disorders. It would be also interesting to do this again with a larger sample size. Larger samples provide smaller margins of errors and a better understanding of the research.
Refrences
Billieux, J., Thorens, G., Khazaal, Y., Zullino, D., Achab, S., & Van der Linden, M. (2015). Problematic involvement in online games: A cluster analytic approach. Computers in Human Behavior, 43, 242–250. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.10.055
Geurten, M., Catale, C., Gay, P., Deplus, S., & Billieux, J. (2021). Measuring Impulsivity in Children: Adaptation and Validation of a Short Version of the UPPS-P Impulsive Behaviors Scale in Children and Investigation of its Links With ADHD. Journal of Attention Disorders, 25(1), 105–114. https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054718775831
Hilgard, J., Engelhardt, C. R., & Bartholow, B. D. (2013). Individual differences in motives, preferences, and pathology in video games: The gaming attitudes, motives, and experiences scales (GAMES). Frontiers in Psychology, 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00608
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I'd like to give a wholehearted thank you to those who mentored me through this amazing experience; The LHSI program, Dr. Tom Hummer, and his research assistants, Jocelyn Brickman and Rachel McCarthy, and I can’t forget all the other professionals who allowed me to shadow and observe their work. I will forever appreciate this internship experience and the time that Dr. Hummer has taken to guide, educate, and provide constructive feedback on my work and most definitely this project. This experience has given me the opportunity to network, learn, exercise new skills, solidate the direction of my post undergrad plans, and it has created a strong foundation for me to continue to build on throughout my professional career.
Thank you!