Digital gaming refers broadly to any video game, electronic and/or interactive, which requires a visual interface, such asa personal computer monitor, television and/or a cellular screen [
1]. Since its inception in the 1950’s and its first mainstream boom in the 1980–1990’s, digital gaming has grown rapidly [
2]. Online gaming has also transcended the notion of personalised and isolated digital gameplay for leisure [
3‐
5]. Online gaming can be similar to many other digital games, where an individual participates in a visual-audio simulated game-platform, with the additional requirement of internet connection to access this world [
6]. Approximately 2.5 billion people (a third of the world’s population) are currently gaming in some form or frequency [
2], while 56% of gamers partake at least once a week with an average playing time of 7 h [
2].
These developments have prompted considerations about how one’s self and their surroundings may be positively and/or negatively affected by internet gaming [
7‐
18]. Indeed, gaming participation has been shown tolikely enhance one’s sense of belonging, purpose and achievement, dexterity skill’s development, and their socialization [
19]. However, some gamers have been supported to game onlineto escape from life stressors [
7]. Over-reliance on such behaviours may compromise their well-being in the longer term [
3‐
5]. This may occur through withdrawal from other life events (e.g. work, education, relationships, family, etc.) and a gamer’s loss of passage of time whilst playing [
3,
4]. Although such behaviours appear to be normally (i.e. only a minority present with extreme behaviours) and transiently (i.e. not permanently) distributed along the general population of internet gamers; when they escalate and persist, they underpin one’sinability to control their use [
20]. The latter has been linked with a range of negative behaviours [
7]. These include, whilst not limited to, increased experiences of depression, anxiety and inattention, reduced social relationships, employment and educational performance, as well as comorbiduse of alcohol and/or substances [
21].
Disordered gaming diagnosis
The American Psychiatric Association (APA [
22];) and the World Health Organization (WHO [
23];) have begun to group these negative consequences together as related to a clinical disorder, within the spectrum of addictions. An addiction refers to symptoms associated with excessive and/or problematic use of a substance or engagement in an activity, where one loses control over their behaviour, despite the harmful consequences this entails (e.g. substance abuse disorder; gambling disorder) [
22]. Some scholars have suggested that addictions (independent of their specific content) share six distinct components involving, salience (i.e. persistent reoccurrence), tolerance (i.e. higher dosages of the behaviour are prospectively required), mood modification (i.e. one does that to change how they feel), relapse (i.e. one is unable to control/abstain from the behaviour), withdrawal (i.e. reducing or eliminating the behaviour invites physiological and/or psychological discomfort), conflicts (i. e. one’s surrounding is opposing the behaviour and tensions arise), and functional impairment (i.e. one’s daily activities, employment and/or education is negatively impacted) [
24,
25]. Specifically, the APA, prompted by reported clinical and research developments, identified excessive gaming behaviours, as a conditional mental disorder in the appendix of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5th edition (DSM-5 [
22];), under the term of Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD). The conditional IGDdefinition consists of 9 criteria/behaviours, whereby if an individual experiences at least five symptoms, potential diagnosis could be inferred. The DSM-5 outlines the list of criteria that is imperative for an individual to be diagnosed with IGD, including: (i) gaming preoccupation, (ii) withdrawal symptoms, (iii) gaming progressively increasing over time, (iv) escapism motivations, (v) unsuccessful gaming control, (vi) continuing gaming despite risk awareness, (vii) loss of interest in other life events, (viii) deception about game time and (ix) jeopardising significant relationships because of gaming. Some years later, the WHO [
23], aligning to some extent with the APA [
22], officially launched Gaming Disorder (GD) as a diagnostic classification into the 11th revision of International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) as a formal mental health disorder. In the ICD-11, GD is broadly defined as a persistent gaming pattern and/or recurrent gaming behaviours that undermine one’s everyday life [
23]. Moreover, GD is explained in the ICD-11 as being manifested by: (i) impaired gaming control (for example: onset, frequency, intensity and duration), (ii) gaming priority over life events (for example: work, education or personal commitments) and (iii) gaming escalates despite negative consequences [
23]. At this point it is noted, that the IGD term and criteria [
22] will be followed in the present study. This choice is largely driven by: a) the existence of well-established instruments to assess IGD, which have demonstrated comparability of ratings across different cultural populations [
26,
27] and; b) the need to align our findings with a significant body of international research that has employed the IGD terms and measurement [
10,
28,
29].
Criticism of the disordered gaming diagnosis
Despite the progress made, several criticisms persist in relation to the IGD diagnosis [
30‐
32]. Firstly, the risk of pathologizing normal entertainment behaviours such as internet gaming has been illustrated [
30]. Indeed, gaming onlinein a regulated manner for recreation and entertainment purposes has been suggested not cause any harm or impairment to one’s life, and this presents to have been the case for the majority of those involved [
33]. Secondly, it is argued that excessive/disordered gaming may not justify as an independent psychopathological diagnosis, as in most of the cases it is either comorbid and/or presents to be a secondary symptom related to other primary mental healthdisorders (i.e. anxiety, depression, addictions) [
7,
11,
34‐
37]. Thirdly, it is argued that the definitions provided may pathologize the medium (i.e.internet gaming), whilst what is more important is the user himself/herself in terms of the risk of developing an excessive gaming behaviour [
32]. Fourth, the methodological quality of a portion of studies conducted to support the IGD diagnosis has been challenged, as being based mostly on community and not clinical samples [
30]. Several counterarguments have been provided. Specifically, it has been supported that IGD behaviours should be addressed dimensionally (i.e. from minimum to maximum), with symptoms following a rather normal distribution among the gamers’ population [
10]. Thus, only a small proportion of gamers presents with diagnosable behaviours (and the medium itself is not pathologized [
38];). In addition, it was argued that addictions in general (substance abuse and/or gambling) tend to constitute secondary symptoms (i.e. maladaptive behaviours addressing the distress related to pre-existing psychopathologies [
39];). Therefore, and given that other addictions are classified as independent conditions, one could assume that this should be also followed in the case of IGD. Last, person focused conceptualizations have been introduced to understand one’s IGD symptoms. These emphasize the significance of user related characteristics and avoid incorrect generalizations to all gamer’s population [
39]. In the light of this unfolding dialogue among scholars in the field, the APA [
22] invited further studies in relation to IGD presentations, and in particular its risk and protective factors.
Individualism-collectivism values and IGD
Numerous IGDassociated factors have received attention in the past [
18]. These include indicativelylower levels of exercise [
41], reduced self-satisfaction outside the game [
8], being a male [
9], and being an adolescent [
42,
43]. Considering the latter in particular, a number of studies appear to imply that younger people, adolescents and emergent adults, are more at risk of IGD [
10,
21,
40]. Within that context, one’s individualism-collectivism values/orientation has been recognised as a parameter that may play a significant role in IGD [
11,
38]. Such values areoften described as involving patterns of behaviour that are both explicitly and implicitly acquired, and are transmitted through symbols or practices, which are shared by those who accompany a common collective/social identity [
44,
45]. Two main dimensions have been adopted to help explain and encompass such differences within a population, individualism, and collectivism [
44,
45]. Individualism is explained asthe influence of values, where one’s social context/group is viewedand experiencedrather separately from their self [
44‐
47]. Therefore, one’s own thoughts, feelings and interests play the most significant role in defining their goal-directed behaviours and decisions; and not those of the group they are members of (e.g. family, religious community) [
44‐
47]. Examples that would identify as more individualistic societies would be nations such as Australia or the United States of America (USA [
4,
47];). On the other hand, collectivist values can be described as promoting an interrelated sense of self with one’s social surrounding, that is often inescapable [
44‐
47]. Thus, one makes decisions motivated more by what is deemed as expected or beneficial for the groups they belong into (e.g. one does what their family expects from them [
46,
47];). Subsequently, this type of valuesmay build social relationships less on individual attributes or self-worth but rather tends to privilege family and/or memberships of certain societal structures [
44‐
47]. An example of a country/society that would identify as a collectivistic country would be China [
46,
47]. While it has been noted that one’s individualism-collectivism orientation is associated to their culture, this is not exclusive [
48,
49]. For example, sociodemographic domains, such as the values and influences present in one’s home and school; as well as biological and genderrelated influences, also interfere (e.g. females tend to be more collectivistic than males) [
12,
48,
49].
Two additional distinctions of individualism and collectivism involve a horizontal category and a vertical category for each [
46,
47]. Firstly, horizontality can be explained as assuming equality between the members of one’s group, whereas verticality viewsindividuals as more or less unequal to each other [
44‐
47]. Therefore, horizontally individualisticvalues encourage people to perceive each other as equal, whilst they are simultaneously independent of each other in terms of what drives their behaviours. Nonetheless, vertical-individualistic valuesstill assume people as independent from each other but simultaneously view them as more or less unequal (clear hierarchy [
44‐
47];). To adapt this to collectivism, a horizontal-collectivist value system would illustrate a society where individuals are self-construal or equal but are interdependent of each other (e.g. Japan) whereas a vertical-collectivist value system demonstrates a society where people a perceived as unequal and are also interdependent of each other (e.g. India [
44‐
47];).
Based on these, behavioural motivations have been assumed to significantly differ among people differing on individualism-collectivism [
44‐
47]. In particular, drives of achievement are hypothesized to be more definitive for those with more individualistic values, connection and belonging for those with more collectivistic values, whereas hierarchy and competition drives as being more related to values of verticality [
44,
45,
47]. Interestingly, such differences have been inferred to effect gaming engagement drives underpinning the severity of IGD behaviours [
11,
20,
38]. For instance, a gamer’s competitive drive against others in order to climb higher within the game hierarchy (e.g. higher in-game level) has been proposed to attract gamers with more vertically individualistic values, where achievement, competition and authority ranking are established as central drivers of one’s behaviour [
44].
Indeed, two recent studies have confirmed such hypotheses in relation to IGD symptoms. Firstly, O’Farrell and colleagues [
11] examinedindividualism-collectivism orientation as a moderatorof the relationship between depression and IGD behaviours. Researchers concluded that gamers who were vertically individualistic and experienced high depression levels, in turn, experienced aggravated IGD behaviours compared to equally depressed but less vertically individualistic gamers. Second, Stavropoulos and colleagues [
50] assessed a similar moderating effect of vertical individualism in the association between inattention and IGD symptoms. Their findings demonstrated an association between IGD behaviours and inattention, and additionally were exacerbated by more vertically individualistic cultural values. These findings are in line with the notion that individuals who relate to values of high independency and to an extent social disconnection, as more vertically individualistic values tend towards, are more predisposed to addictive disorders likeIGD [
11,
51,
52]. It has therefore been illustrated how a vertical-individualistic orientation may increase the severity of IGD symptoms in the context of a co-existing psychopathology [
11,
20]. This is implied to occur, when there is synchronization between a gamer’svalue-dictated drives of hierarchy, personal rewards or competitive success and the in-game mechanics that the player experiences (e.g. levelling up and winning over another player for in-game rewards [
11,
17,
51,
52];).
Despite this progress in relation to the vertical-individualism and IGD behaviours association, the state of the available empirical evidence does not yet suffice to explain why and how IGD prevalence appears to be higher among more collectivistic east Asian countries [
22]. Collectivism related drives for in-game connection and team playing, likely prompted by game mechanics involving socialization and alliances, have not been directly investigated in relation to IGD behaviour, although they have been theoretically implicated [
6,
12]. Additionally, the effect of one’s individualism-collectivism values on their IGD behaviours has been mainly explored as an exacerbator of a pre-existing form of psychopathology (e.g. depression, anxiety, and inattention) and not as an independent direct effect [
11,
20]. Lastly, the analytic approach followed by past studies emphasized only oneindividualism-collectivism dimension (e.g. vertical collectivism) and did not holistically portray gamers across all the four co-existing individualism-collectivism aspects (i.e.vertical and horizontal individualism and collectivism [
11,
20,
50];). The latter is deemed to be significant as one’s individualism-collectivism profile could guide more group focused and thus effective policies for IGD prevention and intervention. Such knowledge could be of particular significance among countries which are multicultural (and therefore require the implementation of cultural/value specific practices across their population) and concurrently present to be high in the consumption of internet games, such as the USA and Australia [
53].
The innovative contribution of the present research
Based on the reviewed literature, this research utilizes an online sample consisting of over 1000 gamers from the community and being assessed in relation to their individualism-collectivism orientation and IGD behaviours. These gamers derive from multi-cultural countries such as the USA and Australia to allow the findings to inspire more IGD effective and culturally responsive policies for these high in game consumption diverse populations [
53]. Furthermore, the current study advances past empirical work by: a) emphasizing on the direct effect of individualism-collectivism orientation on IGD behaviours; b) assessing all four different individualism-collectivism aspects concurrently (e.g. vertical and horizontal individualism and collectivism) to profile gamers and; c) comparing the individualism-collectivism profiles of gamers revealed both in relation to one’s overall IGD behaviours (i.e. assessing one’s IGD symptoms dimensionally, from minimum to maximum, as they are normally distributed to the general population), as well as the nine distinct IGD criteria separately [
22]. Therefore, the following questions have been introduced:
1)
Are there different typologies of internet gamers based on their characteristics, as described by the Individualism-Collectivism model?
2)
If yes, how do these different individualism-collectivism typologies of gamers associate with internet gaming disorder risk?
The present study will attempt to address these innovative aimsvia the employment of an advanced and accurate statistical analysis that enables the identification of homogenous subgroups within a population [
54]. By undertaking this method of analysis, the study will aim to define, the number, size, features and differences between the individualism-collectivism profiles extracted, as well as their links with IGD behaviours.