Designing and Testing the Structural Model of Addiction to Online Games Based on Brain-behavioral Systems and Metacognitive Beliefs

Addiction to online games negatively affects the physical and mental health of adolescents. The present study was conducted to investigate the mediating role of metacognitive beliefs in the relationship between behavioral brain systems and addiction to online games.

This research was a descriptive-correlation type. The statistical population included all the first-year high school students (teenagers) in the Bastak education district in Hormozgan, Iran, who were studying in the academic year of 2021-2022, and 350 people were selected as a sample using the multi-stage cluster random sampling method. They responded to the questionnaires on behavioral inhibition/activation systems, the metacognition scale of online games, and addiction to online games. Structural modeling was used to analyze the collected data.

The results showed that behavioral activation systems and behavioral inhibition systems had a significant direct relationship with addiction to online games, with coefficient values of 0.41 and 0.32, respectively (P<0.001). In addition, behavioral activation systems and behavioral inhibition systems had a significant relationship with online game addiction indirectly, with a coefficient value of 0.18 and 0.13, respectively (P<0.001) through the mediation of metacognitive beliefs.

To reduce addiction to online games, therapists and specialists should examine and evaluate the behavioral brain systems of people on the one hand and, on the other hand, seek to reduce the mechanism of incompatible metacognitive beliefs, along with cognitive and retrospective challenges.