Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is the uncontrollable, excessive, and compulsive playing of Internet games that causes psychological, physical, and social damage [1]. In particular, adolescent IGD is a critical public health issue worldwide [2, 3]. Recent studies report that the prevalence of IGD among Chinese adolescents ranges from 3.1–5.0% [4, 5, 6]. The dangers and high prevalence of IGD prompted us to understand the impact factors and mechanisms influencing IGD risk in adolescents so that targeted intervention programs can be developed.
Many factors affect adolescent IGD, and environmental adversity (i.e., parent-adolescent conflict) has long been considered a significant risk factor for adolescent IGD [7, 8]. Parent-adolescent conflict becomes more common and intense during adolescence. Chinese families have traditionally valued family member harmony and cohesion; thus, parent-adolescent conflict may have more severe repercussions for Chinese adolescents [9]. Adolescents frequently subjected to parent-adolescent conflicts may believe their values are not understood or supported by their parents. Consequently, they are more likely to be overwhelmed by unpleasant emotions and might indulge in gaming to escape from stressful realities or foster other, new social relationships [10, 11]. Sufficient empirical evidence supports the idea that parent-adolescent conflict is instrumental in facilitating adolescent IGD. A systematic review by Schneider et al. [7] determined that parent-adolescent conflict was strongly and positively related to adolescent IGD. Similarly, Zhou et al. [8] found that higher parent-adolescent conflict is associated with greater Internet gaming addiction. Accordingly, parent-adolescent conflict might be a central risk factor for IGD among Chinese adolescents.
Prior studies have identified the harmful impacts of parent-adolescent conflict on IGD among adolescents; however, a significant shortcoming of these studies is that this relationship’s underlying mediating and moderating mechanism has seldom been explored. Based on the social development model [12], this study intends to gauge whether peer socialization (i.e., peer victimization) mediates the link between parent-adolescent conflict and adolescent IGD. Furthermore, a few studies found that genetic factors could explain the variation in IGD [13, 14], suggesting that genetic factors may influence IGD [15]. Understanding the interaction of genetic and environmental factors in IGD may be the basis for the better development of IGD treatments. To explore the interplay between genetic and environmental factors on IGD, this study, based on a gene-environment interactions perspective [16], aims to estimate whether genetic factors (i.e., oxytocin receptor gene rs53576 polymorphism) can moderate this mediating process.
The Mediating Role of Peer Victimization
The social development model [12] contends that peer socialization is an indispensable process whereby socialization units (e.g., family) influence adolescent behavior. A favorable family environment contributes to positive social bonds and prevents problem behaviors by inhibiting adolescents’ association with risky peers. Conversely, if adolescents establish negative social bonds in an adverse family environment, they are more susceptible to risky peers and, in turn, develop problem behaviors. For this study, parent-adolescent conflict may increase peer victimization, which in turn may impact IGD among adolescents. Thus, peer victimization may mediate the relationship between parent-adolescent conflict and adolescent IGD.
Peer victimization refers to a person experiencing intentional aggression and injury from peers over time, including verbal, physical, and relational victimization [17]. First, peer victimization as a stressor is likely to increase psychological distress [18]. Adolescents may utilize internet games to relieve the stress generated by peer victimization, which makes them more likely to develop IGD [19, 20]. For example, with a sample of 2,116 Chinese adolescents, Li and Zhu [19] observed that peer victimization was a significant risk factor in the emergence of IGD. Similarly, a survey among 3,080 Chinese adolescents also showed that greater peer victimization was associated with increased severity of adolescent IGD [20]. Second, parent-adolescent conflict may also contribute to peer victimization [21, 22]. Conflict with parents can result in low self-esteem and lack of assertiveness among adolescents [23, 24]. Such characteristics can lead to victimization. Moreover, parent-adolescent conflict may contribute to adolescents’ habituation of negative interpersonal interaction patterns [25]. Such adolescents are more likely to distrust, remain hostile toward, and inappropriately react to peers, making them more of a target. One study of Greek adolescents indicated that parent-child conflict was positively correlated with and a potent predictor of adolescent experience victimization [22].
Furthermore, previous studies have underlined a mediating role of peer victimization between negative family factors and adolescents’ problem behaviors [26, 27]. For example, research involving 3,180 Chinese adolescents revealed that peer victimization acted as a mediator of the association between parental corporal punishment and aggressive behavior [26]. Likewise, Xu et al. [27] discovered that parental corporal punishment could promote the internalizing of mental health problems (i.e., anxiety and depression) through increasing peer victimization. These results indicate that peer victimization may be a crucial process by which parent-adolescent conflict influences adolescent IGD. Therefore, based on the literature reviewed above, Hypothesis 1 is as follows:
Peer victimization mediates the link between parent-adolescent conflict and IGD among adolescents.
The Moderating Role of OXTR rs53576
The effects of parent-adolescent conflict and peer victimization are theoretically the most consistent and essential factors explaining adolescent IGD. However, not all adolescents are equally influenced by parent-adolescent conflict and peer victimization. Genetic factors may underlie these inter-individual differences in susceptibility to parents and peers. Furthermore, according to the perspective of gene-environment interactions [16], both genetics and the environment may work together in individual behavior development. Therefore, the impact of parent-adolescent conflict and peer victimization on adolescent IGD may be moderated by genetic factors.
The oxytocin receptor gene rs53576 polymorphism (OXTR rs53576) is critical in regulating social behavior [28]. Since social interaction is a prominent feature of online games [11], the OXTR rs53576 may be essential for understanding the genetic etiology of IGD. A study provides evidence for a genetic association between OXTR gene polymorphism and social media use [29]. Accumulating empirical studies affirm that rs53576 is closely related to parenting [30], peer relationships [31], and other problem behaviors [32, 33]. Furthermore, research shows that rs53576 can moderate the association between environmental factors and problem behaviors among adolescents [31, 32]. A longitudinal study following adolescents between 13 to 18 years of age noted that OXTR gene polymorphisms (including rs53576) interacted with deviant peer affiliation in antisocial behavior [31]. In a survey of Chinese Han adolescents, Shao et al. [32] specified that rs53576 moderated the link between stressful life events and aggression. Hence, rs53576 might also be a critical candidate gene for understanding inter-individual differences in adolescent IGD when parent-adolescent conflict and peer victimization are experienced.
The differential susceptibility model [34] proposed that individuals with “plastic” genotypes are more susceptible to the negative influences of unfavorable environments and thus tend to exhibit problem behaviors. Conversely, they are more sensitive to the positive effects of favorable environments and are more likely to develop positively. Previous studies have found that adolescents with a particular genotype of rs53576 are more likely to be maladjusted when facing negative situations and benefit more from positive situations. For example, Hygen et al. [30] conveyed that positive parenting predicted high-level student-teacher relationships, and inadequate parenting predicted higher deterioration of student-teacher relationships for children with AA homozygotes of rs53576. Notably, no effects of parenting were reported on student-teacher relationships among G allele children. Similarly, Zheng et al. [35] demonstrated that the negative influence of childhood adversity on general trust is only significant for AA genotype carriers, not G-allele carriers. These studies indicate that the AA genotype might alter adolescents’ vulnerability and resilience by magnifying or buffering sensitivity to stressful environments. Thus, Hypothesis 2 is based on the above empirical evidence and theoretical analyses:
Adolescent rs53576 will moderate the indirect pathway between parent-adolescent conflict and IGD via peer victimization. The indirect path between parent-adolescent conflict and IGD via peer victimization will differ among adolescents with AA and AG/GG genotypes.
Gender Difference
Abundant empirical research validates that male individuals are more vulnerable to IGD than female individuals [36, 37]. The interplay of genes and environment on adolescent development may also have gender-specific effects. For instance, Vaht et al. [33] noted that AA genotypes were significantly associated with alcohol use at the age of 15 for boys, whereas no such associations were found among girls. Accordingly, this study will consider gender as a moderator in the direct or indirect association between parent-adolescent conflict and IGD. These explorations provide more insight into gender differences in our model and contribute to developing more reasonable interventions for adolescent IGD.
The Current Study
This study employs the social development model [12] and the gene-environment interaction model [16] to account for underlying mechanisms whereby parent-adolescent conflict is associated with adolescent IGD. In addition, this study constituted a moderated mediation model to examine the first and second hypotheses. Figure 1 illustrates the research model.