An Empirical Investigation of the Relationships Among Self-Esteem, Depression and Self-Serving Bias in People with Internet Gaming Disorder

Abstract

Introduction: People are generally characterized by a self-serving bias which describes the tendency to ascribe positive outcomes or success to internal or personal causes (self-enhancement motivation) and ascribe negative outcomes or failure to external or situational causes (self-protection motivation). It has been found that the individuals with internet gaming disorder (IGD) who have low self-esteem and high depression exhibit an attenuated self-serving bias. However, the relationships among self-esteem, depression and self-serving bias are not clearly identified.

Methods: A sample of 138 IGD participants completed self-esteem and depression scales and a causal attribution task (Study 1) to examine the relationships among self-esteem, depression and self-serving bias (both self-enhancement and self-protection). In follow-up Study 2, 28 IGD participants were recruited to undertake self-affirmation intervention which can affirm one's sense of global self-view and bolster self-esteem to explore whether self-affirmation would trigger a reduction of depression and a raise of self-serving bias.

Results: The results of path analysis in Study 1 showed that the self-serving bias was predicted by self-esteem and depression, and the depression played a mediating role between self-esteem and self-serving bias. The results of Study 2 showed that the IGD participants reported higher self-esteem, lower depression and engaged in more self-protection motivation after affirming-self manipulation as compared with affirming-other manipulation.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that self-esteem predicts self-serving bias through depression and self-affirmation could trigger an increase of self-esteem, further decrease depression and improve self-serving bias for the individuals with IGD. The present article clearly identified the relationships among these factors and provided a new approach to promote positive self-concept in individuals with IGD. Future research is warranted to explore the lasting benefits of self-affirmation on domains of education, relationships and gaming withdrawal for the individuals with IGD among different populations.

Keywords: depression; internet gaming disorder; self-esteem; self-serving bias.

Figure 1

The timeline of one trial in the self-serving bias task. Each stimulus included a description of positive or negative interpersonal event, a question and a 4-point scale. Participants were required to attribute the cause of an event to himself or herself from 1= “Very unlikely” to 4= “Very likely” in 6-s.

Figure 2

Path analyses depicting self-esteem to self-enhancement (Model 1) and to self-protection (Model 2) via depression. Standard parameter estimates are presented.

Figure 3

An overview of the cooperative balance ball game for self-affirmation intervention.

Figure 4

Behavioral results of Study 2. The IGD participants rated lower in the negative condition after affirming-self manipulation as compared with affirming-other manipulation, but there was no significant difference in positive condition (error bars represent standard error of the mean, **p < 0.01).