When social approach meets social avoidance: Social motivation and internet gaming disorder from variable-centered and person-centered perspectives

Social motivations play a central role in driving individuals to engage continuously in online gaming. Prior research has documented separate associations of social motivations with Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD), but it remains unclear whether individuals exhibit distinct configurations of social motivations and whether these configurations are differentially associated with IGD. To address this gap, the present study employed an integrated variable-centered and person-centered approach to examine the joint associations of preference for online social interaction (POSI), social anxiety, and persistent gaming intention with IGD. Data from 1984 young adults were included in the analyses. Variable-centered analyses showed that both POSI and social anxiety were positively associated with IGD and had significant indirect associations with IGD through persistent gaming intention. Person-centered analyses identified latent social motivation profiles, with higher levels of persistent gaming intention and IGD observed among individuals with concurrently high POSI and high social anxiety. These findings are consistent with a more differentiated compensation account that considers both offline social difficulty and orientation toward online social interaction. More broadly, these findings suggest that the associations of social motivations with IGD vary across configurations of POSI and social anxiety.