Psychological Development and Education ›› 2026, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (3): 337-347.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2026.03.04

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Abnormal Social Punishment Avoidance Processing in Individuals with Internet Gaming Disorder: Evidence from an ERP Study

NIE Yufeng1,2,3, GUO Junyi1, HE Jinbo2,3, LI Yongxin1   

  1. 1. Laboratory of Psychology and Behavior of Henan University, Kaifeng 475004;
    2. Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior(CCNU), Ministry of Education, Wuhan 430079;
    3. Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079
  • Published:2026-05-15

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Abstract: Recent studies have revealed abnormalities in social reward processing among individuals with internet gaming disorder (IGD). Both punishment avoidance and reward acquisition in social interactions serve as motivational drivers, and this dual mechanism may jointly influence the behavioral patterns of IGD individuals. This study employed a Social Incentive Delay task combined with event-related potential (ERP) techniques to investigate game-related versus real-life social punishment avoidance processing in IGD subjects. Behavioral results demonstrated that IGD participants exhibited significantly shorter reaction times in game-social contexts compared to real-social contexts. At the neural level, game-social incentive cues elicited significantly larger cue-P3 amplitudes than real-social cues, while successful game-social punishment avoidance evoked greater reward positivity (RewP) compared to real-social avoidance. These findings suggest that IGD individuals demonstrate stronger motivational drive for avoiding game-social punishments than real-social punishments, and experience enhanced reward effects when successfully evading game-social punishments.

Key words: Internet gaming disorder, social punishment avoidance, reward anticipation, reward consumption

CLC Number: 

  • B844
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