Perceived social norms and video gaming in emerging adults: A cross-sectional investigation.

BACKGROUND: Problematic video gaming is a growing concern among emerging adults. While perceived social norms are well-established predictors of substance use, their role in problematic gaming remains understudied. This study examined whether descriptive norms (estimates of others' gaming frequency) and injunctive norms (estimates of others' approval of gaming) were associated with gaming frequency, duration, and problem gaming severity across three reference groups: typical students, same-gendered students, and close friends. METHOD: Participants were 1,295 Canadian undergraduates recruited from five universities who reported past-12-month video gaming. Participants completed self-report surveys of normative gaming perceptions, personal gaming behaviours, and gaming-related problems. Path models tested whether perceived norms were associated with problem gaming severity via personal past-30-day gaming frequency and average daily duration. RESULTS: As hypothesized, participants estimated that peers gamed more often than themselves, with the largest estimations for more distal groups. Descriptive norms were positively associated with personal gaming frequency across all three groups, and with duration for the same-gender and close-friend groups; both were associated with greater problem gaming severity. Injunctive norms were associated with personal gaming frequency, duration, and problem gaming severity only for the close-friend group. Effect sizes were strongest for close friends, then same-gendered peers, then typical students. CONCLUSIONS: Findings extend the social norms literature to problematic gaming and identify perceived norms as a correlate of problem gaming in emerging adults. Longitudinal/intervention research is needed to clarify the direction of these associations and evaluate whether personalized normative feedback may help reduce problem gaming.