Project Details
Projekt
RP11: Sex-/gender-related aspects in affective and cognitive mechanisms of gaming disorder and pornography use disorder
Subject Area
General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
Term
since 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 411232260
Female participants are significantly underrepresented in research on gaming disorder and pornography use disorder. However, initial work on sex/gender differences in gaming disorder demonstrates the importance of considering sex-/gender-specific mechanisms of the development and maintenance of these two specific Internet-use disorders. RP11 will address affective and cognitive processes in females with gaming disorder and pornography use disorder compared to healthy control females. The central concepts of FOR 2974, in particular cue reactivity and craving as well as executive functions and decision making and their interactions, will be considered. The cue-reactivity paradigm with distal cues (e.g., login page of computer games, logos of pornography sites) developed in the first funding period of FOR 2974 will be applied. Similarly, the modified Iowa Gambling Task with specific addiction-related cues displayed on the disadvantageous decision options (as in RP4 in the first funding period) will be used. Results from the first funding period show that distal cues can trigger craving responses in males with gaming disorder or pornography use disorder. In RP11, we will use the same behavioral measures from the cue-reactivity and decision-making paradigms as RP4 in the first funding period (with male participants) to examine the hypothesized effects in female participants. This will allow us to compare results not only between groups in RP11 but also with groups from RP4 in the first funding period to specifically test for sex-related differences. In the experimental part, we will include four groups (n=32 each group): females with 1) gaming disorder, 2) non-problematic gaming, 3) pornography use disorder, 4) non-problematic pornography use. In addition, RP11 will include two work packages (WPs) with respective qualitative parts. One WP will focus on sex/gender differences in individual illness representations of the disorder in participants with pathological use (including self-stigma, subjective assumptions about the development of the disorder, and utilization of health care services). The other WP will focus on media-specific aspects and content. In both WPs, (group) interviews will be conducted on all four types of specific Internet-use disorders studied in the FOR2974 in order to draw a complete picture. In each case, the results of the qualitative studies will be used as the basis for further quantitative surveys. An inclusive approach of diverse sex and gender dimensions will be applied. RP11 has strong links to RP4 of the first funding period as well as to RP3, RP4, RP7, and RP10 of the second funding period.
DFG Programme
Research Units
