Attentional disengagement difficulties toward game-related social reward and avoidance toward real-life social reward among individuals with Internet gaming disorder

Individuals with Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) exhibit behaviors of immersion in game social interactions and detachment from real-life social interactions. Social Motivation Theory posits that social rewards incentivize social activities, while impairments in social reward processing may lead to such behaviors. Moreover, attentional bias plays a crucial role in reward processing. However, no studies have examined attentional bias toward social rewards in individuals with IGD. Therefore, this study utilized a dot-probe paradigm to compare attentional bias toward game-related social rewards (GR) and real-life social rewards (RR) between 30 individuals with IGD and 31 healthy controls (HC) and further explored attentional vigilance (early-stage) and disengagement difficulties/avoidance (later-stage). The results indicated that (1) individuals with IGD exhibited higher attentional bias toward GR than RR. (2) Attentional bias in individuals with IGD occurred in later stages, characterized by attentional disengagement difficulties for GR and attentional avoidance for RR. (3) The degree of attentional disengagement difficulties for GR and attentional avoidance for RR in individuals with IGD was positively correlated with the severity of IGD. The results suggest that immersion in gaming social interactions and disconnection from real-life social interactions in individuals with IGD may be related to difficulties in disengaging from GR and avoiding RR in later stages of attentional bias. This study reveals the mechanisms underlying the different patterns of social activities of individuals with IGD in both gaming and real-life contexts from the perspective of attentional bias toward social rewards.