Effects of self-isolation and quarantine on loot box spending and excessive gaming—results of a natural experiment

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Brain, Cognition and Mental Health
We intended to also assess the effect of being in citywide lockdowns, but the low number of participants reporting not being in lockdown (n = 69) rendered this analysis underpowered, likely invalidating the results. Interested readers can find these results in Supplemental Information.

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Introduction

Pre-registered hypotheses

  1. Participants who report being in self-isolation or quarantine will have higher psychological distress (as measured by the K-10), higher spending on loot boxes, higher risky loot box use scores (as measured by the Risky Loot box Index; RLI), higher excessive gaming (as measured by the IGD scale), and higher contamination concern than participants not in self-isolation or quarantine.

  2. There will be a significant positive correlation between contamination concern (as measured by the contamination subscale of the Revised Padua Inventory 10) and psychological distress as measured by the K-10.

  3. There will be a significant positive correlation between contamination concern and spending on loot boxes, risky loot box use, and excessive gaming scores (as measured by the IGD scale). This effect will be stronger for participants currently in self-isolation or quarantine than for those not in self-isolation or quarantine.

  4. There will be a significant positive correlation between the amount of money participants report spending on purchasing loot boxes in the past month and their problem gambling symptoms as measured by the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI).

  5. The relationship will be stronger for participants in self-isolation or quarantine than for those not in self-isolation or quarantine.

  6. Participants who are categorized as problem gamblers by the PGSI will report spending more money in the past month on loot boxes than participants who are categorized as moderate-risk gamblers, who in turn will spend more on loot boxes than low-risk gamblers, who in turn will spend more on loot boxes than non-gamblers.

  7. Being in self-isolation or quarantine will moderate the relationship between PGSI category and spending on loot boxes, such that problem gambler classification will show a larger difference in spending for participants currently in self-isolation or quarantine than participants not currently in self-isolation or quarantine.

  8. There will be a significant positive correlation between the amount of money participants report spending on purchasing loot boxes in the past month and psychological distress as measured by the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K-10).

Methods

Participants

Measures

Psychological distress

Spending on loot boxes in past month

Risky loot box index

Excessive gaming

Contamination concern

Problem gambling symptoms

Procedure

Results

Discussion

Conclusion

Supplemental Information

Supplemental measures and analyses

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.10705/supp-1

Additional Information and Declarations

Competing Interests

The authors declare there are no competing interests.

Author Contributions

Lauren C. Hall conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft.

Aaron Drummond, James D. Sauer and Christopher J. Ferguson conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, funding Acquisition, and approved the final draft.

Human Ethics

The following information was supplied relating to ethical approvals (i.e., approving body and any reference numbers):

Massey University’s Human Ethics Southern B Committee approved this research (approval number: SOB 19/11).

Data Availability

The following information was supplied regarding data availability:

Data is available at OSF:

Aaron Drummond, Lauren C. Hall, James D. Sauer, and Christopher J. Ferguson. 2021. “Loot Box Spending during a Pandemic.” OSF. January 12. https://osf.io/bxf9m/.

Funding

Supported was received from a Marsden Fund Council from Government funding (MAU1804), managed by Royal Society Te Apārangi awarded to Aaron Drummond, James D. Sauer, and Christopher J. Ferguson. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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