Abstract
INTRODUCTION: As adolescent pathological gaming is increasingly recognized as a societal issue, previous research has aimed to identify the effects of family-related factors (e.g., parenting attitudes, parent-child relationship, etc.) and adolescents' psychosocial factors (e.g., social skills, aggression, etc.). However, few studies have examined the associations among family-related factors, psychosocial factors, and pathological gaming simultaneously within a longitudinal research basis. METHOD: This study analyzed 3 years of longitudinal data collected from 968 adolescent gamers (M = 477, F = 491) in South Korea. A PLS-SEM method was employed using SmartPLS version 4 to reveal potential associations among parenting attitudes (harsh-negative parenting), psychosocial factors (social intelligence, aggression), and the degree of pathological gaming within a structural equation model. RESULTS: The results indicate that harsh-negative parenting strongly influences social intelligence and aggression, potentially leading to pathological gaming. Specifically, harsh-negative parenting decreased the degree of social intelligence but also increased aggression. Social intelligence, in turn, was associated with a decrease in pathological gaming, while aggression was linked to an increase in pathological gaming. DISCUSSION: These findings underscore the critical role and mechanism of parenting attitudes, which may influence adolescents' pathological gaming through impacts on social intelligence and aggression. Adolescents' psychological and social factors can be strongly affected by parents' negative attitudes. In the context of preventing adolescent pathological gaming, more focus on policies or education aimed at parenting attitudes should be considered.