The impact of social identity on online game addiction:
the mediating role of the fear of missing out (FoMO) and the moderating role of the need to belong
Hazal Duman1 &Behcet Yalın Ozkara2
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate (a) the mediating role played by the fear of missing out (FoMO) between social identity and online game addiction, and (b) the moderating role of the need to belong in the indirect relationship between social identity and online game addiction. This model was examined among 318 MMORPGs gamers. Gamers completed surveys regarding social identity, FoMO, the need to belong and online game addiction. Results demonstrated that the impact of social identity on online game addiction can be fully mediated by gamers’ FoMO. Furthermore, this indirect relationship was moderated by the need to belong in the first stage of the mediation process, such that the path from social identity was stronger in the context of greater need to belong.
Keywords MMORPGs . The need to belong . FoMO . Social identity . Online game addiction
Introduction
In modern society, Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) have become a major leisure activity among adolescents. By means of the Internet, MMORPGs collect different players on the same platform and help young people to socialize and to create new relation- ships (Cole and Griffiths2007). MMORPGs allow the players to have fun and provide an escape from their everyday prob- lems (escapism), such as work difficulties, academic respon- sibilities, and stressful real-life situations (Bessière et al.2007;
Seay et al.2004). Furthermore, gamers who experience escap- ism spend more time within the virtual environment, and they start to believe that the MMORPG environment is as realistic as the real world (Kaczmarek and Drążkowski2014).
In addition to the bright side of MMORPGs, most research also pays attention to their dark side, namely, online game addiction. In Section 3 of the Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [DSM-5], the American Psychiatric Association [APA] includes Internet Gaming Disorder [IGD], and explains nine criteria for online game addiction. These are based on behavioral addiction pat- terns that result from the intense use of the Internet for engag- ing in online games (APA 2013). More precisely, the nine proposed criteria of IGDs include preoccupation, withdrawal, tolerance, unsuccessful attempts to control, loss of other inter- ests, continued excessive use despite psychosocial problems, deceiving regarding online gaming, escape, and functional impairment which may have a negative effect on a gamers’
life (APA2013).
Research has indicated that approximately 8% of all 8 to 18-year-olds in the United States display pathological patterns of play, which means that the more time they spend on gam- ing, the more health-related problems they have and the poorer their grades are at school (Gentile 2009). According to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) Report (2017), 65% of all US households are home to at least one person who plays three or more hours of video games a week, while 53% of the most frequent gamers play MMORPGs at least once a week, spending an average of 6 h with others online.
* Hazal Duman
hazalduman3@gmail.com
Behcet Yalın Ozkara behcetozkara@gmail.com
1 Istanbul Rumeli University, Silivri, Turkey
2 Department of Marketing, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Eskisehir Osmangazi University, Meselik Campus, 26480 Eskisehir, Turkey
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00392-w
These numbers increase greatly in countries that have an intense gaming culture. In South Korea, 11.7% of adoles- cents are considered to be addicted to online gaming (Seok and Da Costa2012). Furthermore, there has been an in- crease in the number of reported deaths, due to the intensity of playing MMORPGs (The Sun2018; Unilad2017; CNN 2015; Guardian2010; CBSNEWS2002). In this respect, it is necessary to determine the mechanisms that lead to the structuring of this type of addiction, particularly as the po- tential role of the mediating and moderating variables that may be involved in this mechanism still remain unknown.
In order to fill this gap, the present study conducted a mod- erated mediation analysis among Turkish MMORPG gamers to examine the mediating effect of the Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) and the moderating effect of the Need to Belong in the relationship between social identity and online game addiction. These findings could offer an elaborate understanding of how social identity impacts on- line game addiction.
Relationship between Social Identity and Online Game Addiction
The most distinctive feature of MMORPGs is the social dimension, which includes socializing, relationships, and teamwork (Yee2006; Zhang and Kaufman 2015; Wang et al.2018). This feature provides gamers with the oppor- tunity to interact with other gamers, to share knowledge and to collaborate via their guilds, which is an important aspect of MMORPGs. Guilds are virtual environments in which gamers come together to achieve long- and short- term goals, and to share their tactics and knowledge of the game. In this respect, guilds improve the gamers’ social identity and community membership (Bessière et al.
2007; Salazar2009). Social identity is defined as“that part of the individuals’ self-concept that derives from their knowledge of their membership of a social group (or groups), together with the value and emotional signifi- cance of that membership” (Tajfel1981, p. 255). In other words, social identity reflects the individual’s psychologi- cal attachment to a community (Tajfel and Turner 1979;
Kang et al.2009). Previous research has pointed out the significant effects of MMORPGs on the gamers’ social identity (Pahnila and Warsta 2012; Zhou 2011; Kang et al.2009). According to Guegan et al. (2015), the visual content of MMORPGs provides gamers with a social iden- tity and it makes sense of their real-life social processes.
Together, these findings indicate that there is a strong re- lationship between their social identity and their reason for using MMORPGs, which may also effect their online game addiction.
The Mediating Role of FoMO
It is important, therefore, to explore the potential mediators of social identity and their possible effects on online game addic- tion. From this point, FoMO can be a useful frame for explaining the possible relationship between social identity and online game addiction. FoMO is a psychological trait that is regarded as a kind of social anxiety. It is described as“…a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent” (Przybylski et al.2013, p.1841). Very few research of FoMO exist. However, current studies show that FoMO is associated with negative outcomes, such as alcohol consumption (Riordan et al.2018), poor aca- demic motivation (Alt2018), lower levels of life satisfaction (Dossey 2014), distracted driving (Przybylski et al. 2013).
Furthermore, while emprical research into the consequences of FoMO also shown that FoMO associated with problematic online behaviours and online addiction (Alt2015; Oberst et al.
2017; Kuss and Griffiths2017; Balta et al.2018).
In the context of Social Network Sites (SNSs), FoMO play an important role in the development of psychopathological symptoms such as anxiety and depression (Oberst et al.
2017), and it has been found to be positively associated with the problematic use of SNSs (Przybylski et al.2013; Alt2015;
Beyens et al.2016). Furthermore, the related research also in- dicates that the problematic use of SNSs and online game ad- diction have common components and consequences (Andreassen2015; Baker et al.2016; Wolniewicz et al.2017).
These commonalities can be handled through FoMO.
According to Przybylski et al. (2013), FoMO serves as a me- diator that links the deficit in need satisfaction with the use of SNSs. Alt (2015) also emphasized that there is a direct rela- tionship between SNSs and the motivational factors that are mediated by FoMO. In addition to this, if we discuss the mediating role of FoMO, in the context of addiction, the results reported by Oberst et al. (2017) demonstrate that FoMO mediates the path between psychopathological symp- toms, such as depression and anxiety which also indicates an addiction context. Similarly, Wolniewicz et al. (2017) also found a mediated relationship between both the fear of nega- tive and positive evolution, when predicting the problematic use of SNSs and the social use of these platforms. These common points between SNS users and MMORPG gamers indicate that it is possible for FoMO to have an effect on MMORPG gamers. However, no prior research has directly explored the relation between FoMO and online game addic- tion, nor the mediating role of FoMO in relation between social identity and online game addiction. Based on the liter- ature reviewed above, we hypothesize that:
H1: Social Identity is positively associated with online game addiction, and this relationship is mediated by fear of missing out (FoMO).
The Moderating Role of the Need to Belong
The Need to Belong theory suggests that there is a fundamen- tal psychological need that is found to some degree in all humans and in all cultures (Baumeister and Leary 1995).
According to Baumeister and Leary (1995), the need to be- long has two main features: firstly, people need to establish positive relationships with other people, and away from neg- ative effects; and secondly, people need to perceive that the affective relationships that they have built, are for the future. If we take these two fundamental characteristics, in terms of MMORPGs, they firstly enable gamers to create relationships with other gamers (Ernst 2017; Marchetti et al. 2016;
Molyneux et al.2015; Lin and Lin2011). Yee (2006) pointed out that gamers were more connected to their MMORPG friends than to their real friends. Secondly, future relationships also motivate the use of MMORPGs. According to Chiu et al.
(2006), MMORPGs create a sense of virtual community that provides individual gamers with the feeling of belonging to community. From the opportunities that are provided by the betting MMORPGs, we hypothesize that social identity, which develops within the context of the guild, creates FoMO effect because of the gamers’ social needs. We also expect this possible relationship between social identity and FoMO to moderate, depending on the degree to which gamers belong to the guilds.
Another part of our model indicates that there is a possible relationship between FoMO and online game addiction. Most studies on the problematic use of Social Networking Sites (SNSs) and Internet addiction show that FoMO is associated with the problematic use of SNSs (Przybylski et al.2013;
Elhai et al.2016; Wolniewicz et al.2017; Stead and Bibby 2017). From the similarities between SNSs and MMORPGs, we also propose that an increase in the level of FoMO, which motivates gamers to stay in the game and interact with other gamers, leads to online game addiction. However, this possi- ble relationship is not enough to explain FoMO and online game addiction mechanism. According to Beyens et al.
(2016), the need to belong is related to an increased FoMO, which, in turn, is associated with increased Facebook use, which is one of the many SNS channels. Similar dynamics can most likely also be applied to the context of MMORPGs.
Ernst (2017) found that MMORPGs have multiple aspects that make gamers perceive that they belong. Furthermore, he found that the gamers’ usage of MMORPGs increases with their feeling of belonging. More specifically, Martončik and Lokša (2016) found that guild members in the MMORPGs experience less loneliness than non-guild members, because guilds provide gamers with a sense of belonging and provide opportunities for their members to collaborate. These social advantages of guilds may increase FoMO trait in gamers, and it is logical to assume that the need to belong may exacerbate the relationship between FoMO and online game addiction.
Taken alone, social identity can explain only a small part of online game addiction. Thus, without any other informa- tion about the gamers’ personality traits, it can be difficult to explain the effect of social identity on online game ad- diction. Therefore, the need to belong, as a personal char- acteristic, may better explain the indirect relationship be- tween social identity, which promotes guild membership (Griffiths1998) and online game addiction. According to the Need to Belong hypothesis (Baumeister and Leary 1995), people simply desire to belong to groups and to bolster their own group. Their identities on online platforms display a high level of the need to belong, in order to fulfill their need for relatedness (Douglas et al. 2008; Nadkarni and Hofmann2012; Davis2012). In support of this notion, a recent study found that an indirect effect of student- student relationships on adolescent smartphone addiction is related to self-esteem, which is also an aspect of social identity (Ellemers et al.1999) and is moderated by the need to belong (Wang et al. 2017). However, previous studies generally examined the need to belong as a predictor of online game addiction (Marchetti et al. 2016; Molyneux et al. 2015; Ernst and Ernst 2015), and only a few re- searchers have investigated the need to belong as a moder- ator of the Internet addiction process (Wang et al. 2017;
Kircaburun et al. 2018). To fill this gap in the literature, we put forward the following hypotheses:
H2: The need to belong moderates the relationship of social identity with FoMO.
H3: The need to belong moderates the relationship of FoMO with online game addiction.
H4: The need to belong moderates the relationship of social identity with online game addiction.
Figure1illustrates the proposed model.
Fig. 1 The proposed moderated mediation model
Research Methodology
Design and ProcedureData were collected by conducting a web-based survey that involved posting an invitation to the related game pages be- tween April 15 and June 11 of 2018 (about 2 months). A two- stage process was followed for determining game pages. First, we took account of the online rankings to determine the most played MMORPG games. According to Beebom (2018) and MMORPG (2018), World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, and Dota 2 are the most played games in that genre. Secondly, we identified the mentioned games’ Facebook groups that had at least 3000 members and invitation posted to all identi- fied facebook group pages. These game pages are created by gamers to enable them interact and share gaming knowledge and tactics. More specially, these pages were chosen based on the popularity of games plus their number of members.
Therefore, the participants can be regarded as a representative sample of MMORPG gamers.
Participants
We recruited 348 gamers from game pages. All participants were informed about the aims of the study. They were also informed that participation was voluntary, all data were con- fidential, and participant identity would not be revealed.
Participants signed up via an online system. A pre-screen was used so that the study was only made available to gamers who were (a) playing an online game and (b) member of a clan in the game. However, records which failed to be filled out completely or appropriately were excluded from the analyses.
As a result, the final number of participants was 318 including 302 males (95%) and 16 females (5%) (see Table1). The
study was conducted with approval of the University of Eskisehir Osmangazi Ethics Board.
Measures
We used an online questionnaire survey, which was composed of: questionnaires regarding demographic information and the participants’ game use-related characteristics, the online game addiction scale (Lemmens et al.2009), a social identity scale (Zhou2011), a FoMO scale (Przybylski et al.2013), and a need-to-belong scale (Leary et al.2013). All scales were mod- ified and adapted into Turkish with the help of bilingual ex- perts and then retranslated into English to ensure consistency (Munday2013).
Demographic Information We investigated basic demographic factors of MMORPG gamers, including gender and age. We also asked questions relating to the playing frequency (How many hours a week do you spent in the game?), which clan they are members of (what is the name of your clan where you are actively involved in the game?), and the duration of mem- bership in the clan (How long have you been a member of your the clan?).
The Need to Belong The need to belong scale was introduced by Leary et al. (2013). The need to belong scale has 10 items (e.g.,“I refrain from any actions that would cause other mem- bers of the clan to exclude or obstruct me.”, and “I want other members of the clan to accept me.”), associated with degree of respondents desire to be accepted by other people, seek op- portunities to belong to social groups, and react negatively when they were rejected. Participants responded on a 7-point scale ranging from“strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree”
(7). In the present study, Cronbach’s α for the need to belong was 0.734.
Social Identity The social identity scale used in this study was reorganized from the scale originally developed by Shen et al.
(2007) and modified by Zhou (2011). The modified version consists of 9 items (e.g.,“My personal identity has an over- lapping with group identity”, “I feel a strong feeling of attach- ment to the community”), which assess shared goal by indi- vidual gamer and other gamers, respectively. Participants responded on a 7-point scale ranging from“strongly disagree”
(1) to“strongly agree” (7). In the present study, Cronbach’s α for the social identity was 0.893.
FoMO FoMO scale, developed by Przybylski et al. (2013) is a 10-item scale (e.g.,“I fear others have more rewarding expe- riences than me”, “I fear my friends have more rewarding experiences than me”). Participants responded on a 7-point scale ranging from“strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree”
(7). In the present study, Cronbach’s α for FoMO was 0.844.
Table 1 Demographic characteristics of the participants
Frequency Percentage
Gender
Male 302 95
Female 16 5
Weekly Play Hours
Less than 10 h 151 47.4
11–19 h 76 23.8
More than 20 h 91 28.6
Age
≤17 29 9.1
18–21 104 32.7
22–25 154 48.4
26–29 22 6.9
≥30 9 2.8
Online Game Addiction The online game addiction scale was developed by Lemmens et al. (2009) to measure the degree of online game addiction tendency. The online game addiction scale has 7 items (e.g.,“Did you think about playing a game all day long?”, “Did you play games to forget about real life?”) to measure seven underlying criteria which include salience, tolerance, mood modification, relapse, withdrawal, conflict, and problems with related to addiction process. Participants responded on a 7-point scale ranging from“never” (1) to
“very often” (7). In the present study, Cronbach’s α for the onine game addiction was 0.778.
Statistical Analysis
In this study, data analysis was conducted using PROCESS, which is a computational macro available online for SPSS.
PROCESS uses bias-corrected bootstrapping to generate con- fidence intervals (Preacher and Hayes2008). This procedure addresses the problem of bias resulting from the asymmetric and nonnormal sampling distributions of an indirect effect (Mackinnon et al.2004).
Specifically, Model 4 and Model 59 were utilized as recommended by Hayes (2017) in the current study. More precisely, to test the significance of the mediation effect (H1), we used Model 4 and calculated 5000 bootstrapped samples to estimate the 95% bias corrected and accelerated confidence intervals of the indirect effect. Figure2shows the Process model 4’s conceptual and statistical diagrams. A me- diation test is significant when the lower and the upper bounds of the bootstrap confidence intervals of the indirect effect be- tween the predictor and the outcome do not include zero (Hayes2017). Process model bootstrap approach was used as opposed to the more traditional Sobel test, because the bootstrap method has higher statistical power and makes more realistic assumptions about the sampling distribution of the indirect effect (MacKinnon et al.2004). Furthermore, the method helps resolve the problems associated with the Baron and Kenny (1986) causal steps and Sobel test proce- dures (Ouyang et al.2017).
Further to test moderated mediation effects (H2, H3 and H4), we used Model 59 with bias-corrected bootstrap confidence in- tervals (BC; 95% CI) based on 5000 bootstrap resamples.
Conceptual and statistical diagram of the model 59 illusturates in Fig.3. Model 59, allows us to combine parameter estimates from a mediation analysis with parameter estimates from a mod- eration analysis and combining these two to quantify the condi- tionality of the impact of social identity on online game addiction (Hayes 2017). Significant interactions were probed using the Johnson-Neyman technique, which identifies the regions of sig- nificance of an association when the moderator is a continuous variable (Hayes2017). Since regression analyses included inter- action terms, variables that constitute an interaction product were mean centered to minimize multicollinearity issues (Field2009).
Results
Firstly, we conducted independent sample t-tests between heavy gamers (those who spent more than 20 h per week playing) and light gamers (those who play less than 20 h per week) for each variable in the proposed model. The results showed that there was not a significant difference between heavy gamers (FoMO: M = 3.835, SD = 1.198; the need to belong: M = 4.730, SD = 0.987) and light gamers (FoMO:
M = 3.937, SD = 1.200; the need to belong: M = 4.799, SD = 1.048), for both FoMO t(316) = 0.690, p = .491, d = 0.085 and the need to belong t(316) = 0.538, p = .591, d = 0.067. On the other hand, there was a significant difference between heavy gamers (social identity: M = 5.273, SD = 1.196; online game addiction: M = 4.651, SD = 1.048) and light gamers (social identity: M = 4.932, SD = 1.309; online game addiction: M = 4.135, SD = 1.399) both for social iden- tity t(316) = 2.154, p = .032, d = 0.271 and online game addic- tion t(316) = 3.178, p = .002, d = 0.417. These results indicate that game play hours were not a factor that biased the results.
To address Hypothesis 1 which stated that positive effect of social identity on online game addiction is medaited by FoMO, PROCESS Model 4 was conducted. Results are
Fig. 2 Conceptual and Statistical Diagram of Model 4. Indirect effect of X on Y through Mi= aibiDirect effect of X on Y = c’. Source: Hayes, A. F.
(2017). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. Guilford Publications
presented in Table2. FoMO was found to be a critical predic- tor of online game addiction (95% CI: [0.216, 0.478]). Results also revealed, indirect effect of social identity on online game addiction was qualified by significant mediation through FoMO (95% CI: [0.094, 0.241]). In the simple mediation models, we also performed the Sobel test, which is an alter- native to test the indirect effect in terms of power and intuitive appeal (MacKinnon et al.2002). Sobel test result also indicat- ed the significant mediation (B = 0.160, S.E. = 0.034, Z = 4.615, p = 0.000). In a nutshell, results indicated that FoMO fully mediated the effect of social identity on game addiction.
Thus hypothesis 1 is supported.
To address Hypotheses 2 (The need to belong mediates the relationship between social identity and FoMO), 3 (The need to belong mediates the relationship between FoMO and online game addiction) and 4 (The need to belong mediates the relationship between social identity and online game addiction), PROCESS Model 59 was conducted. Results indicated a strong trend of need
to belong moderating the relationship between social identity and FoMO (95% CI: [0.004, 0.161]). However,“social identity x The need to belong” and “FoMO x The need to belong” interaction terms effect was not statistically significant (see Fig.4).
The distribution of genders skewness also needs consider- ation; therefore, process Models 4 and 59 were also run with a compromised male-only sample. The results still indicated that FoMO fully mediates the relationship between social identity and online game addiction (B = 0.163, S.E. = 0.035, Z = 4.594, p = 0.000). Likewise, results showed that the need to belong only moderated the relationship between social identity and FoMO, also for the male sample (B = 0.904, S.E = 0.041, t(298) = 2.201, p = .028). The need to belong had a non significant moderating effect on the relationship between social identity and online game addiction (B =− 0.115, S.E = 0.060, t(296) =− 1.922, p = .055). Furthermore, the moderating effect of need to belong also insignificant for the relationship between FoMO and online game addiction
Table 2 Hypothesis results
Independent variable Dependent variable B S.E t p 95% Confidence interval Hypothesis
LLCI ULCI
Social Identity Game Addiction 0.268 0.056 4.769 0.000 0.157 0.378 H1 (S)
R2= 0.067
Social Identity FoMO 0.462 0.046 10.138 0.000 0.373 0.552 H2 (S)
R2= 0.245
Social Identity Game Addiction 0.108 0.062 1.730 0.085 - 0.015 0.230
FoMO R2= 0.141 0.347 0.067 5.209 0.000 0.216 0.478 H3 (S)
Social Identity X NTB FoMO 0.082 0.039 2.064 0.039 0.004 0.161 H5 (S)
R2= 0.32
FoMO X NTB Game Addiction 0.109 0.063 1.739 0.083 - 0.014 0.233 H6 (N.S)
Social Identity X NTB R2= 0.15 - 0.104 0.059 - 1.74 0.082 - 0.220 0.013 H7 (N.S)
FoMO Fear of Missing Out, NTB The Need To Belong, S Supported, N.S Not Supported Fig. 3 Conceptual and Statistical Diagram of Model 59. Conditional
indirect effect of X on Y through Mi= (a1i+ a3iW) (b1i+ b2iW).
Conditional direct effect of X on Y = c1’ + c3’W Source: Hayes, A. F.
(2017). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. Guilford Publications
(B = 0.111, S.E = 0.063, t(296) = 1.771, p = .077). These re- sults indicated that the skewness of the gender distribution of the sample did not lead to a bias on the results.
Discussions and Conclusion
The influence of social identity on MMORPGs has begun to gain empirical support (Guegan et al.2015; Pahnila and Warsta2012; Zhou2011; Kang et al.2009). However, ques- tions concerning the influence of social identity on online game addiction, mediating and moderating mechanisms re- main largely unanswered. This study established a relation- ship between social identity and online game addiction.
Additionally, it considered a moderated mediation model to test whether social identity would be indirectly associated with online game addiction through FoMO, and whether this indirect relationship was moderated by the need to belong.
The results indicated that the impact of social identity on on- line game addiction can be fully explained by gamers’ FoMO.
Furthermore, this indirect relationship was moderated by need to belong in the first stage of the mediation process, such that the path from social identity was stronger in the context of higher need to belong. Several points are worth noting.
To begin with, t-test results indicate that addiction tendency among heavy gamers was more apparent than among light gamers as expected. Likewise, heavy gamers cared more about their social identity as clan members than light gamers.
This result is in line with the results of the studies by Bessière et al. (2007) and Hendricks and Winkler (2014). Moreover, results show that the mediator (FoMO) and moderator (the need to belong) variables were similar between the two groups (heavy gamers vs. light gamers), and therefore, game play hours was not a factor that biased the results. Furthermore results of only male sample also indicates that bias is not a problem for our study.
Second, previous studies about online game addiction highlight the variables that could be predictive of online game
addiction such as personality traits (Yang and Tung2007; Kim et al. 2008; Jeong and Kim2011; Cole and Hooley2013) game features and scope (Wan and Chiou2006; Chen et al.
2010) and the state of flow (Ting-Jui and Chih-Chen2003).
Our study adopted social identity theory to explain online game addiction and its mechanism. More specifically, this study explains addiction context relating to guilds member- ship which provide to social identity of gamers. In the past research about social identity on MMORPGs context focused on character creation process (Bessière et al. 2007), social support and game loyalty (Kang et al.2009), participation process of guilds (Zhou 2011) and player identification (Looy et al.2010). In addition to these studies, our research enriches previous findings by examining the effects of gamers’ social identity on online game addiction process.
Third, by investigating the mediating role of FoMO, the present study offers a more comprehensive understanding of the associations between gamers’ social identity and online game addiction. Interestingly, the results indicated that when FoMO taken into consideration, the direct associations be- tween gamers’ social identity with online game addiction dis- appeared. While we did find support for the direct associations between gamers’ social identity and online game addiction when FoMO was not considered (B = 0.268, SE = 0.056, p = 0.000), no support was found for these direct associations in integrative model that we test. More specifically, FoMO is a phenomenon that is mainly investigated in the study of SNS addiction (Przybylski et al.2013; Alt2015; Oberst et al.2017;
Wolniewicz et al.2017). As far as we know, this is the first study to use FoMO in online game addiction context. This result highlights the importance of FoMO as an explanatory mechanism in the association between social identity and on- line game addiction and emphasizes the importance of inves- tigating mediation models.
Fourth, this study was to examine the need to belong would moderate the indirect link between social identity and online game addiction. The results revealed that the need to belong only moderated the path between social identity and FoMO.
The relationship between social identity and online game ad- diction was significant for gamers with high need to belong.
According to Baumeister and Leary (1995), people with high need to belong simply desire to belong to groups and bolster their own group. This is consistent with our results. Gamers with high need to belong may make more effort to strengthen their social identity which maintain interact with guilds mem- bers. Thus they may fear to miss out social opportunities and want to stay connected with guilds members. This result is consistent with prior research showing that MMORPGs create sense of virtual community which provide individual experi- ences the feelings of belonging to virtual community (Chiu et al.2006).
Lastly, previous studies indicated that FoMO was associat- ed with SNS addiction (Przybylski et al. 2013; Elhai et al.
Fig. 4 Results of moderated mediation. Dashed lines represent insignificant paths. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01. ***p < 0.001
2016; Wolniewicz et al.2017; Stead and Bibby 2017). In addition, the need to belong is related with increased FoMO, which in turn, is associated with increased usage of Facebook which is one of the SNSs channels (Beyens et al.2016). From similarities between SNSs and MMORPGs, we expected that the need to belong would mediate the relationship between FoMO and online game addiction. Contrary to our expecta- tion, the need to belong did not moderate the relation between FoMO and online game addiction. This result could be ex- plained by the effect of belonging in terms of individuals.
According to the need to belong theory, the need to belong is fundamental human motivation which has impact emotions, cognitions and behaviors (Baumeister and Leary1995). This definition indicates that belonging is a more internal situation for individuals. However, FoMO refers to an external process that depends on what others do. (Przybylski et al.2013). This difference between the need to belong and FoMO could be one of the reasons for our unsupported moderation relationship.
Taken together, by integrating perceived need to belong as a moderator into the model, the present study revealed effects that may have been neglected without the moderation analy- sis. The moderated mediation model in this study is concep- tually more sophisticated and provides greater predictive pow- er than mediation model alone.
Several limitations must be considered when interpreting the findings of this study. First, our study includes only gamer of MMORPGs. In addition to that, the study used a small size convenience sample which might not have represented all gamers of MMORPGs. Future researches should try to collect data from other gamers whose play other type of games such as FPS (First Person Shooter), TPS (Third Person Shooter) and RTS (Real Time Strategy). Second, the majority of the gamers in our sample are male (M = 302; F = 16) and majority of them consist of 18–25 age groups (81.1% of all sample).
This issue also limit generalizability and external validity of the results. Third, our study mainly conducted a cross- sectional study. However, online game addiction is a process which is an ongoing basis. Thus, a longitudinal research may provide more insights on online game addiction.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Informed Consent “Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.”
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