Category Archives: Psychiatry
Reading by example: The books that inspired my career
This Christmas I managed to do a lot of book reading (most of it being David Bowie-related) and my favourite read was John O’Connell’s Bowie’s Books: The Hundred Literary Heroes Who Changed His Life (which If I’m nit-picking should actually be the 98 heroes because George Orwell and Anthony Burgess make two appearances each on the list), followed by Will Brooker’s Why Bowie Matters (a book I wish I had wrote because it was written by a Professor of Film and Cultural Studies and is a loose account of an academic spending a whole year trying to live like David Bowie as a piece of research). I also love lists so I thought I’d kick off the New Year with a list of the books that have shaped my academic life. This list was first published by The Psychologist (in 2018) but this blog may give my list a wider readership.

Excessive Appetites: A Psychological View of the Addictions (by Jim Orford)
One of the most influential books on my whole career is Jim Orford’s seminal book Excessive Appetites that explored many different behavioural addictions including gambling, sex, and eating (i.e., addictions that don’t involve the ingestion of psychoactive substances). Jim Orford’s books are always worth a read and he writes in an engaging style that I have always admired. It was by chance that I did my PhD at the University of Exeter (1987-1990) where Orford was working at the time and since 2005 we have published many co-authored papers together. While we can agree to disagree on some aspects of how and why people become addicted, Jim will continue to be remembered as a pioneer in the field of behavioural addiction.
The Psychology of Gambling (by Michael Walker)
If there’s one book I’d wish I had written myself, it is this one. I did my PhD on slot machine addiction in adolescence but this book was published shortly after I’d finished and beautifully summarises all the main theories and perspectives on gambling psychology. My PhD would have been a whole lot easier if this book had been published when I first started my research career! I got to know Michael quite well before his untimely death in December 2009 (and he was external PhD examiner to some of my PhD students), and one of my enduring images of him was walking around at gambling conferences with his book clutched in his hand. Some of my colleagues found that a little strange but if I’d have written a book that good I’d have it with me at such events all the time!
Motivational Interviewing: Preparing People for Change (by William R. Miller and Stephen Rollnick)
I reviewed this book for the British Journal of Clinical Psychology (BJCP) back in the early 1990s and concluded by saying that it is a book that should be read by all therapists because its content can be applied to nearly all clinical situations and not just to those individuals with addictive behaviour problems. Motivational interviewing (MI) borrows strategies from cognitive therapy, client-centred counselling, systems theory, and the social psychology of persuasion, and the underlying theme of the book is the issue of ambivalence, and how the therapist can use MI to resolve it and allow the client to build commitment and reach a decision to change. In my most recent research I’ve used the basic tenets of MI in designing personalised messages to give to gamblers while they are gambling online in real time. I’ve now come to the conclusion 25 years after writing my BJCP review that anyone interested in enabling behavioural change should apply the tenets in this book to their work.
The Myth of Addiction (by John B. Davies)
Even though this book was published back in 1992, I still tell my current students that this is a ‘must read’ book. Davies takes a much researched area of social psychology (i.e., attribution theory) and applies it to addiction. The basic message of the book is that people take drugs because they want to and not because they are physiologically addicted. The whole book is written in a non-technical manner and is highly readable and thought provoking. I often use Davies’ term ‘functional attribution’ from this book in my teaching and writings on sex addiction, and apply it to celebrities who use the excuse of ‘sex addiction’ to justify their infidelities.
Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices (by Anil Aggrawal)
Anyone that reads my blog will know that when it comes to the more bizarre side of sexual activity, my ‘go to’ book is Dr. Aggrawal’s book on unusual sexual practices. Others in the sexology field often look down their noses at this book but it is both enjoyable and informative and the kind of book that once you start reading you find it hard to put down again. A lot of academic books on sexual behaviour can be boring and/or impenetrable but this one is the polar opposite. The book also kick-started some of my own recently published research on sexual fetishes and paraphilias.
Small World (by David Lodge)
During my PhD, I remember watching the 1988 adaptation of David Lodge’s novel Small World. At the time, I had never heard of David Lodge but I went out and bought the book and was totally hooked. I then discovered that Small World was the second part of a ‘campus trilogy’ (preceded by Changing Places and followed by Nice Work). Since then I have bought every novel Lodge has ever published and he’s my favourite fiction writer (and I’ve bought and read some of his academic books on literary criticism). I love campus novels and through Lodge and devoured other university-based novels (including Malcolm Bradbury’s The History Man, Howard Jacobson’s Coming from Behind, and Ann Oakley’s The Men’s Room among my favourites).
Dr. Mark Griffiths, Professor of Behavioural Addiction, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Further reading
Aggrawal A. (2009). Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Brooker, W. (2019) Why Bowie Matters. London: William Collins.
Davies J. B. (1992). The Myth of Addiction. Reading: Harwood Academic Publishers.
Griffiths, M.D. (2018). My shelfie. The Psychologist: Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 31, 70.
Lodge, D. (1984). Small World. London: Secker & Warburg.
Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (1991). Motivational Interviewing: Preparing People to Change Addictive Behavior. New York: Guilford Press.
O’Connell, J. (2019). Bowie’s Books: The Hundred Literary Heroes Who Changed His Life. London: Bloomsbury.
Orford, J. (2001). Excessive Appetites: A Psychological View of the Addictions. Chichester: Wiley.
Sound affects: Another look at ‘music addiction’
In a previous blog that I wrote seven years ago, I looked at the concept of ‘music addiction’. As Philip Dorrell pointed out in his 2005 book What is Music? Solving a Scientific Mystery, music (like drugs) acts on our emotions and feelings. Regular readers of my blog will know that I describe myself as a ‘music obsessive’ and have written many articles about my own passion for listening to and collecting music (a few examples here, here, and here). One of the proudest moments of my life was getting a populist article on ‘music addiction’ published in Record Collector, my favourite magazine (see screenshot below and ‘Further reading’ for the full reference).

A 2011 study published by Dr. Valorie Salimpoor and her colleagues in Nature Neuroscience reported that on a neurochemical level, the pleasurable experience of listening to music releases the neurotransmitter dopamine that is important for the pleasures associated with rewards such as food, psychoactive drugs and money. This led to many headlines in newspapers along the lines of ‘people who say that they are addicted to music are not lying’. The team also reported that just the anticipation of pleasurable music led to increased dopamine release. Therefore, this helps explain why individuals (like myself) continually repeat songs or albums all the time as we want to re-experience those sensations repeatedly.
My previous article examined the concept of ‘musomania’ (i.e., an obsession with music). I noted that there had been very little in the way of academic or clinical literature on the topic although since writing my original article I have come across a couple of more recently published studies looking at the concept (one which published shortly after my original blog on the topic).
Dr. Nicolas Schmuziger and his colleagues published a paper in a 2012 issue of Audiology Research entitled ‘Is there addiction to loud music? Findings in a group of non-professional pop/rock musicians’. They hypothesized that listening to loud music may be an addictive behavior and that it could result in hearing damage (which is one of the reasons they published their findings in an audiology journal – also, they probably would have found it harder to publish their study in an addiction journal). They hypothesized that individuals who were members of non-professional pop/rock bands who had regular exposure to loud music would be more likely to show an addictive-like behavior for loud music compared to individuals who were not.
In their study, the researchers recruited 50 non-professional musicians and matched them with 50 control participants. Both groups completed a questionnaire called the Northeastern Music Listening Survey (NEMLS) comprising two basic scales. The first scale was an adaptation of the Michigan Alcohol Screening Test (MAST) to study the addictive-like behavior towards loud music. The NEMLS was developed by Dr. Mary Florentine and her colleagues to assess Maladaptive Music Listening (MML). It is a 24 item scale that (in relation to listening to music) examining five distinct areas: “(i) recognition and admission of the problem by self and others; (ii) legal, work and social problems; (iii) seeking involvement with treatment programs; (iv) marital-family difficulties; and (v) medical pathology”. In addition to socio-demographic questions (on age, gender, and level of education), a second component of the NEMLS included “four items assessing three out of seven clinical diagnostic criteria for substance dependence as outlined by the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) of the American Psychiatric Association…The other four criteria were already embedded within the MAST”.
Findings showed that nine (out of 50) met the DSM-IV criteria for ‘music dependence’ compared to just one individual in the control group. Seven of the nine musicians endorsing DSM criteria also had a positive score on the NEMLS. The researchers concluded that traits of addictive-like behavior to loud music were detected more often in members of nonprofessional pop/rock bands than in matched controls. The authors themselves pointed out that they did not explore the reasons why their participants “with repeated exposure to high-sound levels of electro-amplified music may be more likely to show traits of maladaptive behavior to loud music than the control subjects, and whether they develop such behavior before or after joining a pop/rock band”. They also concluded that only a few participants in their sample may have maladaptive music listening.
A more recent paper by Dr. Christine Ahrends entitled ‘Does excessive music practicing have addiction potential?’ was published in the journal Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain. She noted that:
“A theory that has previously been put forward but has not yet been empirically examined is the idea of “musical addictivity” (Panksepp, 1995)… Panksepp assumes an involvement of the opioid system for the emergence of “chills” when listening to music and concludes from there that listening to emotionally arousing music can be addictive through the release of opioids. On those grounds, Panksepp compares the phenomenon of music-induced chills (defining the main bodily response as a feeling of coldness) with that of drug addiction and its related withdrawal symptoms (like the so-called “cold turkey”). Although this comparison has major limitations, the general hypothesis might provide a new perspective on certain types of music-related behavior”.
Put simply, it has been argued that music has the capacity to activate the reward centres in the human brain and this can lead to behavioural addiction. Dr. Ahrends noted that recent studies supported the idea of addictive music consumption (citing the studies by Schmuziger and colleagues, and the study by Florentine and colleagues, both mentioned above) but not for music practicing. She wrote that:
“Anecdotal evidence has shown that some musicians either continue to practice through practice-induced pain or have psychosomatic disorders at deprivation, thus transforming a former goal-directed behavior into a maladaptive one”.
Based on the small empirical literature and anecdotal evidence, Dr. Ahrends hypothesized that music practice has the potential to be addictive and carried out an exploratory empirical study. To assess music practice addiction, she adapted the Exercise Dependence Scale Revised (EDS-R) (very similar to my own Exercise Addiction Inventory) and investigated the extent to whether musicians fulfilled the criteria to be classified as being “at risk for dependence” in relation to their music practice. A total of 25 musicians were recruited from German conservatories. Based on the scale scores three of the participants were classified as “at risk for dependence,” 20 of the participants were classified as “nondependent-symptomatic,” and two were classified as “nondependent-asymptomatic.” Based on these results, Dr. Ahrends claimed the findings provided tentative support for music practice addiction. She went on to argue that the concept of music practice addiction is a promising concept for further research and “may have implications for the understanding of mental health problems in musicians”.
In relation to this latter study, I would argue that this isn’t a case of ‘music practice addiction’ (if it exists at all) but if it exists, it is actually akin to ‘study addiction’ (a pre-cursor to ‘workaholism’) that I and my colleagues have published a number of papers on over the past few years (see ‘Further reading). The notion of ‘study addiction’ is highly controversial so it’s unsurprising that ‘music practice addiction’ would similarly be seen as controversial by most scholars working in the behavioural addiction field.
Dr Mark Griffiths, Distinguished Professor of Behavioural Addiction, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Further reading
Ahrends, C. (2017). Does excessive music practicing have addiction potential? Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain, 27(3), 191-202.
Atroszko, P.A., Andreassen, C.S., Griffiths, M.D. & Pallesen, S. (2015). Study addiction – A new area of psychological study: Conceptualization, assessment, and preliminary empirical findings. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 4, 75–84.
Atroszko, P.A., Andreassen, C.S., Griffiths, M.D. & Pallesen, S. (2016). Study addiction: A cross-cultural longitudinal study examining temporal stability and predictors of its changes. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 5, 357–362.
Atroszko, P.A., Andreassen, C.S., Griffiths, M.D., Pallesen, S. (2016). The relationship between study addiction and work addiction: A cross-cultural longitudinal study. Journal of Behavioral Addiction, 5, 708–714.
Dorrell, P. (2005). Is music a drug? 1729.com, July 3. Located at: http://www.1729.com/blog/IsMusicADrug.html
Dorrell, P. (2005).What is Music? Solving a Scientific Mystery. Located at: http://whatismusic.info/.
Florentine, M., Hunter, W., Robinson, M., Ballou, M., & Buus, S. (1998). On the behavioral characteristics of loud-music listening. Ear and Hearing, 19(6), 420-428.
Griffiths, M.D. (2012). Music addiction. Record Collector, 406 (October), p.20.
The Local (2007). Man gets sick benefits for heavy metal addiction. June 19. Located at: http://www.thelocal.se/7650/20070619/
Morrison, E. (2011). Researchers show why music is so addictive. Medhill Reports, January 21. Located at: http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=176870
Panksepp, J. (1995). The emotional sources of “chills” induced by music. Music Perception, 13, 171–207.
Salimpoor, V.N., Benovoy, M., Larcher, K. Dagher, A. & Zatorre, R.J. (2011). Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music. Nature Neuroscience 14, 257–262.
Schmuziger, N., Patscheke, J., Stieglitz, R., & Probst, R. (2012). Is there addiction to loud music? Findings in a group of non-professional pop/rock musicians. Audiology Research, 2(e1), 57-63.
Smith, J. (1989). Senses and Sensibilities. New York: Wiley.
Bed-ly serious: A brief look at ‘sleeping addiction’
As a life-long insomniac, I’ve always been interest in sleep at a personal level. In 1984, when I was studying for my psychology degree, the first ever research seminar I attended was one on the psychology of sleep by Dr. Jim Horne (who was, and I think still is, at Loughborough University). I found the lecture really interesting and although I never pursued a career in sleep research it was at that point that I started to take an interest more professionally. In my blog I’ve written a number of articles on various aspects of sleep including sexsomnia (engaging in sexual acts while sleeping, for instance, while sleepwalking), somnophilia (engaging in sexual acts while individuals are sleeping), Sleeping Beauty paraphilia (a sub-type of somnophilia in which individuals are sexually aroused by watching other people sleep), and lucid dreaming (where individuals are aware they are dreaming and exert some kind of control over the content of the dream),
More recently, I’ve been a co-author on a number of research papers in journals such as Sleep Medicine Reviews, Journal of Sleep Research, and Sleep and Biological Rhythms (see ‘Further reading below) but these have all involved either the effects of internet addiction on sleep or the psychometric evaluation of insomnia screening instruments rather than being about the psychology of sleep.
In a previous A-Z article on “strange and bizarre addictions” I included ‘sleep addiction’ as one of the entries. Obviously I don’t believe that sleeping can be an addiction (at least not by my own criteria) but the term ‘sleep addiction’ is sometimes used to describe the behaviour of individuals who sleep too much. Conditions such as hypersomnia (the opposite of insomnia) has been referred to ‘sleeping addiction’ (in the populist literature at least). In a 2010 issue of the Rhode Island Medical Journal, Stanley Aronson wrote a short article entitled ‘Those esoteric, exoteric and fantabulous diagnoses’ and listed clinomania as the compulsion to stay in bed. Given the use of the word ‘compulsive’ in this definition, there is an argument to consider clinomania as an addiction or at least a behaviour with addictive type elements.

In an online article entitled ‘Sleep addiction’, Amber Merton also mentioned clinomania in relation to an addiction to sleep:
“If you are obsessed with sleeping or have an intense desire to stay in bed, you could be suffering from a condition called clinomania. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who can experience symptoms similar to addiction and even withdrawal in association with sleep, or lack thereof”.
The reference to ‘addiction-like’ symptoms appears to have some validity based on these self-report accounts I found online. All of these individuals mention various similarities between their constant need for sleep and addiction. I have highlighted these to emphasize my assertions that some of the consequences are at the very least addiction-like:
- Extract 1: “I believe someone can become psychologically dependent on sleep. I am 47 and have used sleep for 40 years to escape from life…I typically sleep 4-6 hours too much each day. Sleep feels like an addiction to me because I crave it several times a day and am looking forward to how I can sneak it in. I don’t seem to be able to control it with will power for very long…I only have short periods when this isn’t a problem. When I am under stress it is at its worse. If I have any free or unstructured time, I can’t control how much I sleep excessively. When my time is heavily scheduled, I really struggle with keeping a full schedule and crave the time off when I can sleep for hours. If I know I’ll have a few hours in between activities free, I will find ways to sneak in some sleep. I am embarrassed about this, don’t tell the people around me the extent of the problems and devise ways to sneak in sleep without people knowing”.
- Extract 2: “I love sleeping. It feels so good I think I could even become addicted if I didn’t HAVE to wake up. I sleep about 12 hours every day and could sleep more if I didn’t have to do daily necessities. I am aware of the fact that people who generally sleep more than they are supposed to, die sooner and have other various health problems. To be honest I would rather sleep than do most things. I even choose sleep over sex a lot”.
- Extract 3: “I often sleep for 12-20 hours at a time. I have depression and am on anti-depressants. I just love sleeping. It’s so safe and comfy. I don’t know how else to explain it. It’s just amazing”.
- Extract 4: “I sleep AT LEAST 12 hours a day. But on days off I’ve been known to sleep for about 15-20 hours. [I am] addicted to sleep. I’ve cancelled social outings with friends pretending to be sick when really I just wanted to sleep in. I love sleep and I can’t get enough of it. I’ve slept through the entire weekend multiple times before, only waking up Monday morning when my alarm rang. And even after that much wonderful sleep I was still tired. The second I come home from work every day I eat, shower, and then crawl into bed and sleep the entire evening and night away. My alarm’s the only thing that can wake me up anymore…As for why I love sleep so much, I see a lot of people saying it’s an escape for them. For me it’s more, I don’t like people or going out or socializing, so sleep is my drug of choice. Is it bad? Maybe. Do I care? Not really…I more than love it, and it’s not hurting anyone if we’re being honest”.
- Extract 5: “I feel like I’m addicted to sleep. Here’s why I think though. I suffered for 13 years with depression and while I know I am still getting over it I don’t feel that’s the reason I’m addicted. During those 13 years I would have serious bouts of chronic insomnia. The doctors tried to many different sleeping medications, meditation, clinics to help me find a routine for natural sleep without meds. Nothing worked. Now I live in Thailand and my doctor here recommended melatonin tablets, all natural as your brain is supposed to produce it anyway to tell you when it’s dark it’s time to sleep and when it’s like light it’s time to wake up. She thinks my brain fails to produce certain chemicals as such with serotonin and now figured melatonin. Since I have been taking a melatonin supplement, I sleep so well, I fall asleep within 20 minutes and I sleep for AT LEAST 8 hours. When I wake up I just want to go back to sleep again because it feels amazing. I don’t feel like it’s part of my anxiety or my depression, I just think it’s because I had insomnia for so long its addictive!”
- Extract 6: “To be honest if I could I would sleep my life away. My so called normal sleeping pattern: I am awake all night. Fall asleep around 4am-8am. Sleep 12 hours. Repeat. My mind is a broken record, constantly repeating the trauma. I do suffer from depression and anxiety. Sleep is my addiction. When I sleep I feel SAFE regardless?”
- Extract 7: “I’ve been addicted to sleep (the escape from an abusive childhood, depression, and PTSD) since I was ten years old! I want to change though because my body is a mess. I’ve slept for 4 days and sometimes more with short awake periods to eat a little and use the potty. Not enough though, because now my body doesn’t work properly…Oversleeping has its consequences”.
- Extract 8: “I’m so pleased that I have found this site and other people who are addicted to sleep as this problem has plagued my adult life and I would like it to stop. Take today for instance, I woke at 5.30am and was quite awake feeling a little anxious but I could not wait to get to sleep again, so I did and stayed in bed till around 2.20 pm. I have many days like this and as the lady above the sleep state is quite lucid and I do seem to enjoy it rather than getting up and living life for real”.
Again, I reiterate that none of these individuals are addicted to sleep but in addition to the addiction-like descriptions, there is also crossover in the motivations for excessive sleep and motivations underlying addictions (most noticeably the association with depression, anxiety, psychological trauma, and using the activity as an escape). In relation to addiction, these extracts include references to salience (engaging in sleep to the neglect of everything else in their life), cravings (for sleep), the sleep being excessive, repetitive and habitual, sleep leading to negative consequences (conflict), and loss of control. The fact that many of these individuals describe their behaviour as an addiction or addictive doesn’t mean that it is.
While there is no academic paper that I know of that has ever claimed sleep can be a genuine addiction there are countless clinical and empirical papers examining excessive sleep (i.e., hypersomnia) and the different etiological pathways that can lead to hypersomnia. Although hypersomnia is not an addiction, those with the condition (like addicts) can suffer many negative side-effects from the relatively minor (e.g., low energy, fatigue, headaches, loss of appetite, restlessness, hallucinations) to the more severe (e.g., diabetes, obesity, heart disease, clinical depression, memory loss, suicidal ideation, and in extreme cases, death). In one online article I came across, the similarity between hypersomnia and addiction in relation to depression was evident:
“It’s important to note that in some cases separating cause from effect here can be muddled. For instance, does over sleeping contribute to depression or does depression contribute to oversleeping? Or are both oversleeping and depression the effect of a larger underlying cause? Furthermore, once a person is experiencing both, could they act to reinforce the other as a feedback loop?”
This observation could just as easily be made about most addictions (substance or behavioural). Finally, it’s worth noting that there are many sub-types of hypersomnia and excessive sleep. In a good review of hypersomnia [HS] in Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports, Dr. Yves Dauvilliers notes the following hypersomnia sub-types (including narcolepsy which can include excessive sleep but isn’t usually classed as a type of hypersomnia; also note that ‘idiopathic’ means of unknown cause) which I have paraphrased below:
- Narcolepsy: This is a disabling neurologic disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleep (EDS) and cataplexy (i.e., a sudden loss of voluntary muscular tone without any alteration of consciousness in relation with strong emotive reactions such as laughter, joking).
- Narcolepsy without cataplexy: This is simply a variant of narcolepsy with cataplexy (but without the cataplexy).
- Idiopathic hypersomnia: Idiopathic HS is rare and remains a relatively poorly defined condition due to the absence of specific symptoms such as cataplexy or sleep apneas (i.e., loss of breathing while sleeping).
- Recurrent hypersomnia: This HS is characterized by repeated episodes of excessive sleep (at least 16 hours a day) lasting from a few days up to several weeks. The most well-known recurrent HS is Kleine-Levin syndrome which comprises both cognitive disturbances (feelings of confusion and unreality) and behavioural disturbances (such as overeating and hypersexual behaviour during symptomatic episodes).
- Hypersomnia associated with neurologic disorders: This type of HS causes EDS and can be a result of brain tumours, dysfunction in the thalamus, hypothalamus, or brainstem that may mimic idiopathic HS or narcolepsy.
- Hypersomnia associated with infectious disorders: This type of HS can be a result of viral infection such as HIV pneumonia, Whipple’s disease (a systemic disease most likely caused by a gram-positive bacterium), or Guillain-Barré syndrome (a rapid-onset muscle weakness caused by the immune system damaging the peripheral nervous system).
- Hypersomnia associated with metabolic or endocrine disorders: This type of HS can be a result of conditions such as hyperthyroidism, diabetes, hepatic encephalopathy (a liver dysfunction among individuals with cirrhosis), and acromegaly (a hormonal disorder that develops when the pituitary gland produces too much growth hormone).
- Hypersomnia caused by drugs: This type of HS is secondary to many different types of drug medication including hypnotics, anxiolytics, antidepressants, neuroleptics, anti-histamines, and anti-epileptics.
- Hypersomnia not caused by drugs or known physiologic conditions: This type of HS can be caused by a range of disorders such as depressive disorder, seasonal affective disorder, and abnormal personality traits.
None of these types of HS is an addiction but clearly the negative consequences can be just as serious for the individual.
Dr. Mark Griffiths, Distinguished Professor of Behavioural Addiction, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Further reading
Alimoradi, Z., Lin, C-Y., Broström, A., Bülow, P.H., Bajalan, Z., Griffiths, M.D., Ohayon, M.M. & Pakpour, A.H. (2019). Internet addiction and sleep problems: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Sleep Medicine Review, 47, 51-61.
Aronson, S. M. (2010). Those esoteric, exoteric and fantabulous diagnoses. Rhode Island Medical Journal, 93(5), 163.
Bener, A., Yildirim, E., Torun, P., Çatan, F., Bolat, E., Alıç, S., Akyel, S., & Griffiths, M.D. (2019). Internet addiction, fatigue, and sleep problems among students: A largescale survey study. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. doi: 10.1007/s11469-018-9937-1
Billiard, M., & Dauvilliers, Y. (2001). Idiopathic hypersomnia. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 5(5), 349-358.
Dauvilliers, Y. (2006). Differential diagnosis in hypersomnia. Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports, 6(2), 156-162.
Domenighini, A. (2016). Can you be addicted to sleep? Vice, January 24. Located at: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mg7e33/can-you-be-addicted-to-sleep
Hawi, N.S., Samaha, M., & Griffiths, M.D. (2018). Internet gaming disorder in Lebanon: Relationships with age, sleep habits, and academic achievement. Journal of Behavioral Addiction, 7, 70-78.
Mamun, M.A. & Griffiths, M.D. (2019). Internet addiction and sleep quality: A response to Jahan et al. (2019). Sleep and Biological Rhythms. doi: 10.1007/s41105-019-00233-0
Merton, A. (2008). Sleep addiction. Located at: https://www.plushbeds.com/blog/sleep-disorders/sleep-addiction/
Mignot, E. J. (2012). A practical guide to the therapy of narcolepsy and hypersomnia syndromes. Neurotherapeutics, 9(4), 739-752.
Pakpour, A., Lin, C-Y., Cheng, A.S., Imani, V., Ulander, M., Browall, M. Griffiths, M.D., Broström, A. (2019). A thorough psychometric comparison between Athens Insomnia Scale and Insomnia Severity Index among patients with advanced cancer. Journal of Sleep Research. doi: 10.1111/jsr.12891.
World of the Weird: The A-Z of strange and bizarre addictions
Today’s blog takes a brief look at some of the stranger addictions that have been written about in the academic literature (or academics that have tried to argue these behaviours can be addictive). Some of these ‘addictions’ listed are not addictions by my own criteria but others have argued they are. The papers or books that have argued the case for the cited behaviour being a type of addiction are found in the ‘Further reading’ section.
- Argentine tango addiction: A French study published in a 2013 issue of the Journal of Behavioral Addictions by Remi Targhetta and colleagues argued that a minority of 1129 Argentine tango dancers they surveyed may be addicted to dancing. In 2015, I and some of my Hungarian colleagues developed the Dance Addiction Inventory (published in PLoS ONE) and also argued that a minority of dancers (more generally) might be addicted to dance and conceptualized the behaviour as a form of exercise addiction.
- Badminton addiction: While there are many behaviours I could have chosen here including addictions to box set television watching (aka ‘box set bingeing), bargain hunting, bungee jumping, blogging, and bodybuilding, a recent 2018 paper published in NeuroQuantology by Minji Kwon and colleagues carried out a neuroimaging study on a sample 45 badminton players. Using the Korean Exercise Addiction Scale, 20% of the sample were defined as being addicted to badminton.
- Carrot eating addiction: Again, there are many behaviours I could have chosen here including alleged addictions to crypto-trading, chaos, collecting, crosswords, and cycling, there are a number of published case studies in the psychological literature highlighting individuals addicted to eating carrots including papers by Ludek Černý and Karel Černý, K. (British Journal of Addiction, 1992), and Robert Kaplan (Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 1996).
- Death addiction: A recent paper by Dr. Marc Reisinger entitled ‘Addiction to death’ in the journal CNS Spectrums attempted to argue that attraction to death be considered an addiction similar to gambling addiction. Reisinger related the concept to individuals who have left Europe to join the jihad in Syria, and outlined the case of 24-year-old French-Algerian Mohamed Merah who committed several attacks in Toulouse in 2012 and who ‘glorified’ death. Te paper claimed that this “addiction to death is taught by Salafist preachers, whose videos, readily accessible on the internet, are kind of advertisements for death, complete with depictions of soothing fountains and beautiful young girls”.
- Entrepreneurship addiction: There are a couple of papers by April Spivack and Alexander McKelvie (a 2014 paper in the Journal of Business Venturing, and a 2018 paper Academy of Management) arguing that entrepreneurship can be addictive. They define ‘entrepreneurship addiction’ as “the excessive or compulsive engagement in entrepreneurial activities that results in a variety of social, emotional, and/or physiological problems and that despite the development of these problems, the entrepreneur is unable to resist the compulsion to engage in entrepreneurial activities”. They also make the case that that entrepreneurship addiction is different from workaholism.
- Fortune telling addiction: Although I could have included addictions to financial trading or fame, a 2015 paper in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions by Marie Grall-Bronnec and her colleagues reported the case study of a woman (Helen) that was ‘addicted’ to fortune tellers. They used my addiction criteria to assess whether Helen was addicted to fortune telling, and argued that she was.
- Google Glass addiction: In previous blogs I have written on addictions to gossip and gardening (although these were based more on non-academic literature). However, a 2015 paper published by Kathryn Yung and her colleagues in the journal Addictive Behaviors, published the first (and to my knowledge) only case of addiction to Google Glass (wearable computer-aided glasses with Bluetooth connectivity to internet-ready devices. The authors claimed that their paper, (i) showed that excessive and problematic uses of Google Glasscan be associated with involuntary movements to the temple area and short-term memory problems, and (ii) highlighted that the man in their case study displayed frustration and irritability that were related to withdrawal symptoms from excessive use of Google Glass.
- Hacking addiction: Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s I wrote a number of papers on internet addiction and included ‘hacking addiction’ as a type of internet addiction. Given the criminal element of this type of internet addiction I wrote about it in criminological-based journals such as The Probation Journal (1997) and The Police Journal (2000). One of the most infamous cases that I have written about took place in London in 1993, where Paul Bedworth was accused of hacking-related crime causing over £500,000 worth of damage. On the basis of expert witness testimony, he was acquitted on the basis that he was addicted to hacking. Since then, various papers have been published arguing that hacking can be an addiction. For instance, in an in-depth interview study of 62 hackers, Siew Chan and Lee Yao used addiction as a framework to explain their participants’ behaviour (see their paper in the Review of Business Information Systems, 2005).
- Internet search addiction: Although I was tempted to go for IVF addiction, I thought I would go for ‘internet search addiction’ which basically refers to constant ‘googling’ where individuals spend hours and hours every day using online databases to go searching for things. This behaviour was first alluded to by Kimberley Young in her 1999 classification of different types of internet addiction which she called ‘information overload’ and was defined as compulsive web surfing or database searches. More recently, Yifan Wang and her colleagues developed the Questionnaire on Internet Search Dependence (QISD) published in Frontiers in Public Health (FiPH). I criticized the QISD in a response paper published in FiPH, not because I didn’t think internet search addiction didn’t exist (because theoretically it might do, even though I’ve never come across a genuine case) but because the items in the instrument had very little to do with addiction.
- Joyriding addiction: There have been a number of academic papers published on joyriding addiction. Arguably the most well-known study was published by Sue Kellett and Harriet Gross in a 2006 issue of Psychology, Crime and Law. The study comprised semi-structured interviews with 54 joyriders (aged 15 to 21 years of age) all of whom were convicted car thieves (“mainly in custodial care”). The results of the study indicated that all addiction criteria occurred within the joyriders’ accounts of their behaviour particularly ‘‘persistence despite knowledge and concern about the harmful consequences’’, ‘‘tolerance’’, ‘‘persistent desire and/or unsuccessful attempts to stop’’, “large amounts of time being spent thinking about and/or recovering from the behaviour’’ and “loss of control”. The paper also cited examples of ‘withdrawal’ symptoms when not joyriding, the giving up of other important activities so that they could go joyriding instead, and spending more time participating in joyriding than they had originally intended.
- Killing addiction: The idea of serial killing being conceptualized as an addiction in popular culture is not new. For instance, Brian Masters book about British serial killer Dennis Nilsen (who killed at least 12 young men) was entitled Killing for Company: The Story of a Man Addicted to Murder, and Mikaela Sitford’s book about Harold Shipman, the British GP who killed over 200 people, was entitled Addicted to Murder: The True Story of Dr. Harold Shipman. In Eric Hickey’s 2010 book Serial Murderers and Their Victims, Hickey makes reference to an unpublished 1990 monograph by Dr. Victor Cline who outlined a four-factor addiction syndrome in relation to sexual serial killers who (so-called ‘lust murderers’ that I examined in a previous blog). One of the things that I have always argued throughout my career, is that someone cannot become addicted to an activity or a substance unless they are constantly being rewarded (either by continual positive and/or negative reinforcement). Given that serial killing is a discontinuous activity (i.e., it happens relatively infrequently rather than every hour or day) how could killing be an addiction? One answer is that the act of killing is part of the wider behaviour in that the preoccupation with killing can also include the re-enacting of past kills and the keeping of ‘trophies’ from the victims (which I overviewed in a previous blog).
- Love addiction: In the psychological literature, the concept of love addiction has been around for some time dating back to works by Sigmund Freud. Arguably the most cited work in this area is the 1975 book Love and Addiction by Stanton Peele and Archie Brodsky. Their book suggested that some forms of love are actually forms of addiction, and tried to make the case that some forms of love addiction may be potentially more destructive and prevalent than widely recognized opiate drugs. There have also been a number of instruments developed assessing love addiction including the Love Addiction Scale (developed by Hunter, Nitschke, and Hogan, 1981), and the Passionate Love Scale (developed by Hatfield, and Sprecher, 1986).
- Muscle dysmporphia as an addiction: In a paper I published with Andrew Foster and Gillian Shorter in a 2015 issue of the Journal of Behavioral Addictions, we argued that muscle dysmorphia (MD) could be classed as an addiction. MD is a condition characterised by a misconstrued body image in individuals who interpret their body size as both small or weak even though they may look normal or highly muscular. MD has been conceptualized as a body dysmorphic disorder, an eating disorder, and/or part of the obsessive-compulsive disorder symptomatology. Reviewing the most salient literature on MD, we proposed an alternative classification of MD that we termed the ‘Addiction to Body Image’ (ABI) model. We argued the addictive activity in MD is the maintaining of body image via a number of different activities such as bodybuilding, exercise, eating specific foods, taking specific drugs (e.g., anabolic steroids), shopping for specific foods, food supplements, and/or physical exercise accessories, etc.. In the ABI model, the perception of the positive effects on the self-body image is accounted for as a critical aspect of the MD condition (rather than addiction to exercise or certain types of eating disorder). Based on empirical evidence, we proposed that MD could be re-classed as an addiction due to the individual continuing to engage in maintenance behaviours that may cause long-term harm.
- News addiction: Although I could have chosen nasal spray addiction or near death addiction, a recent 2017 paper on ‘news addiction’ was published in the Journal of the Dow University of Health Sciences Karachi by Ghulam Ishaq and colleagues. The authors used some of my papers on behavioural addiction to argue for the construct of ‘news addiction’ as a construct to be empirically investigated. The authors also developed their own 19-item News Addiction Scale (NAS) although the paper didn’t give any examples of any of the items in the NAS. In relation to personality types (and like other addictions), they found news addiction was positively correlated with neuroticism and negatively correlated with conscientiousness. Given that this is the only study on news addiction that I am aware of, I’ll need a lot more research evidence before I am convinced that it really exists.
- Online auction addiction: A number of academics have made the claim that some individuals can become addicted to participating in online auctions. In a 2004 paper on internet addiction published in American Behavioral Scientist, Kimberley Young mentioned online auction [eBay] addiction in passing. The same observation was also made in a later 2009 paper by Tonino Cantelmi and Massimo Talls in the Journal of CyberTherapy and Rehabilitation. Other researchers have carried out empirical studies including a (i) 2007 paper by Cara Peters and Charles Bodkin in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, (ii) 2008 paper by Chih-Chien Wang in the Proceedings of the Asia-Pacific Services Computing Conference, and (iii) 2011 study carried out by Dr. Ofir Turel and colleagues published in the MIS Quarerly. These papers indicated that those with problematic online auction use experienced (i) psychological distress, (ii) habitual usage, (iii) compulsive behaviour, (iv) negative consequences, and/or (v) dependence, withdrawal and self-regulation.
- Pinball addiction: Although I could have listed alleged addictions to plastic surgery and poetry, as far as I am aware, I am the only academic to have published a paper on pinball addiction. Back in 1992, I published a case study in Psychological Reports. My paper featured the case of a young man (aged 25 years) who (based on classic addiction criteria) was totally hooked on pinball. It was the most important thing in his life, used the behaviour to modify his moods, got withdrawal symptoms if he was unable to play pinball, had engaged in repeated efforts to cut down or stop playing pinball, and compromised all other activities in his life (education, occupation and relationships). To me, this individual had a gaming addiction but it was pinball rather than videogame addiction.
- Qat addiction: Qat (sometimes known as khat, kat, cat, and ghat) is a flowering plant traditionally used as a mild stimulant in African and Middle East countries (Somalia, Yemen, Ethiopia). Heavy qat users can experience many side effects including insomnia, anxiety, increased aggression, high blood pressure, and heart problems. There are numerous reports in the medical literature of qat addiction (see papers by Rita Manghi and colleagues in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, and Nezar Al-Hebshi and Nils Skuag in Addiction Biology).
- Rock climbing addiction: Over the past two years, a couple of papers by Robert Heirene, David Shearer, and Gareth Roderique-Davies have looked at the addictive properties of rock climbing specifically concentrating on withdrawal symptoms and craving. In the first paper on withdrawal symptoms published in 2016 in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions, the authors highlighted some previous research suggesting that there are similarities in the phenomenology of substance-related addictions and extreme sports (in this case rock climbing). The study concluded that based on self-report, rock climbers experienced genuine withdrawal symptoms during abstinence from climbing and that these were comparable to individuals with substance and other behavioural addictions. In a second investigation just published in Frontiers in Psychology, the same team reported the development of the Rock Climbing Craving Questionnaire comprising three factors (‘positive reinforcement’, ‘negative reinforcement’ and ‘urge to climb’).
- Study addiction: I was spoilt for choice on the letter ‘S’ and could have mentioned addictions to speeding, selfie-taking, shoplifting, Sudoko, and stock market speculation. However, there are now a number of published papers on ‘study addiction’ (individuals addicted to their academic study), three of which I have co-authored (all in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions and led by my colleague Pawel Atroszko). We have conceptualised study addiction as a type of work addiction (or a pre-cursor to work addiction) and in a series of studies (including longitudinal research) we have found empirical evidence of ‘study addiction’. Italian researchers (Yura Loscalzo and Marco Giannini) have also published research on ‘overstudying’ and ‘studyholism’ too (in the journals ARC Journal of Psychiatry, 2017; Social Indicators Research, 2018).
- Tanning addiction: There is now lots of empirical research examining ‘tanorexia’ (individuals who crave tanning and spend every day on sunbeds). However, I along with my colleagues in Norway recently reconceptualised tanorexia as a ‘tanning addiction’ and developed a scale to assess it (which was recently published in a 2018 issue of the British Journal of Dermatology). Our study was the largest over study on tanning (over 23,000 participants) and our newly developed scale (the Bergen Tanning Addiction Scale) had good psychometric properties.
- Upskirting addiction: Upskirting refers to taking a photograph (typically with a smartphone) up someone’s skirt without their permission. In the UK there have been a number of high profile court cases including Paul Appleby who managed to take 9000 upskirting photos in the space of just five weeks (suggesting that he was doing it all day every day to have taken so many photos), and Andrew MacRae who had amassed 49,000 upskirt photos and videos using hidden cameras at his workplace, on trains, and at the beach. Both men avoided a custodial sentence because their lawyers argued they were addicted and/or had a compulsion to upskirting. In a 2017 issue of the Law Gazette, forensic psychologist Julia Lam made countless references to upskirting in an overview of voyeuristic disorder. Dr. Lam also talked about her treatment of upskirting voyeurs and recounted one case which she claimed was a compulsion (and who was successfully treated). The case involved a male university student who was very sport active but who masturbated excessively whenever major sporting events or important exams were imminent as a coping strategy to relieve stress.
- Virtual reality addiction: Back in 1995, in a paper I entitled ‘Technological addictions’ in the journal Clinical Psychology Forum, I asserted that addiction to virtual reality would be something that psychologists would be seeing more of in the future. Although I wrote the paper over 20 years ago, there is still little empirical evidence (as yet) that individuals have become addicted to virtual reality (VR). However, that is probably more to do with the fact that – until very recently – there had been little in the way of affordable VR headsets. (I ought to just add that when I use the term ‘VR addiction’ what I am really talking about is addiction to the applications that can be utilized via VR hardware rather than the VR hardware itself). Of all the behaviours on this list, this is the one where there is less good evidence for its existence. Perhaps of most psychological concern is the use of VR in video gaming. There is a small minority of players out there who are already experiencing genuine addictions to online gaming. VR takes immersive gaming to the next level, and for those that use games as a method of coping and escape from the problems they have in the real world it’s not hard to see how a minority of individuals will prefer to spend a significant amount of their waking time in VR environments rather than their real life.
- Water addiction: In a blog I wrote back in 2015, I recounted some press stories on individuals who claimed they were ‘addicted’ to drinking water. My research into the topic led to a case study of ‘water dependence’ published a 1973 issue of the British Journal of Addiction by E.L. Edelstein. This paper reported that the excessive drinking of water can dilute electrolytes in an individual’s brain and cause intoxication. This led me to a condition called polydipsia (which in practical terms means drinking more than three litres of water a day) which often goes hand-in-hand with hyponatraemia (i.e., low sodium concentration in the blood) and in extreme cases can lead to excessive water drinkers slipping into a coma. There are also dozens and dozens of academic papers on psychogenic polydipsia (PPD). A paper by Dr. Brian Dundas and colleagues in a 2007 issue of Current Psychiatry Reports noted that PPD is a clinical syndrome characterized by polyuria (constantly going to the toilet) and polydipsia (constantly drinking too much water), and is common among individuals with psychiatric disorders. A 2000 study in European Psychiatry by E. Mercier-Guidez and G. Loas examined water intoxication in 353 French psychiatric inpatients. They reported that water intoxication can lead to irreversible brain damage and that around one-fifth of deaths among schizophrenics below the age of 53 years are caused this way. Whether ‘water intoxication’ is a symptom of being ‘addicted’ to water depends upon the definition of addiction being used.
- X-ray addiction: OK, this one’s a little bit of a cheat but what I really wanted to concentrate on what has been unofficially termed factitious disorder (FD). According to Kamil Jaghab and colleagues in a 2006 issue of the Psychiatry journal “FD is sometimes referred to as hospital addiction, pathomimia, or polysurgical addiction”. The primary characteristic of people suffering from FD is that they deliberately pretend to be ill in the absence of external incentives (such as criminal prosecution or financial gain). It is called a factitious because sufferers feign illness, pretend to have a disease, and/or fake psychological trauma typically to gain attention and/or sympathy from other people. Again, whether such behaviours can be viewed as an addiction depends upon the definition of addiction being used.
- YouTube addiction: I unexpectedly found my research on internet addiction being cited in a news article by Paula Gaita on compulsive viewing of YouTube videos (‘Does compulsive YouTube viewing qualify as addiction?‘). The article was actually reporting a case study from a different news article published by PBS NewsHour by science correspondent Lesley McClurg (‘After compulsively watching YouTube, teenage girl lands in rehab for digital addiction’). The story profiled a student whose obsessive viewing of YouTube content led to extreme behaviour changes and eventually, depression and a suicide attempt. Not long after this, I and my colleague Janarthanan Balakrishnan published what we believe is the only ever study on YouTube addiction in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions. In a study of over 400 YouTube users we found that YouTube addiction was more associated with content creation than watching content
- ‘Zedding’ addiction: OK, I’m using the Urban Dictionary’s synonym here as a way of including ‘sleep addiction’. The term ‘sleep addiction’ is sometimes used to describe the behavior of individuals who sleep too much. Conditions such as hypersomnia (the opposite of insomnia) has been referred to ‘sleeping addiction’ (in the populist literature at least). In a 2010 issue of the Rhode Island Medical Journal, Stanley Aronson wrote a short article entitled “Those esoteric, exoteric and fantabulous diagnoses” and listed clinomania as the compulsion to stay in bed. Given the use of the word ‘compulsive’ in this definition, there is an argument to consider clinomania as an addiction or at least a behaviour with addictive type elements.
Dr Mark Griffiths, Distinguished Professor of Behavioural Addiction, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Further reading
Al‐Hebshi, N., & Skaug, N. (2005). Khat (Catha edulis) – An updated review. Addiction Biology, 10(4), 299-307.
Andreassen, C.S., Pallesen, S. Torsheim, T., Demetrovics, Z. & Griffiths, M.D. (2018). Tanning addiction: Conceptualization, assessment, and correlates. British Journal of Dermatology. doi: 10.1111/bjd.16480
Aronson, S. M. (2010). Those esoteric, exoteric and fantabulous diagnoses. Rhode Island Medical Journal, 93(5), 163.
Atroszko, P.A., Andreassen, C.S., Griffiths, M.D. & Pallesen, S. (2015). Study addiction – A new area of psychological study: Conceptualization, assessment, and preliminary empirical findings. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 4, 75–84.
Atroszko, P.A., Andreassen, C.S., Griffiths, M.D. & Pallesen, S. (2016). Study addiction: A cross-cultural longitudinal study examining temporal stability and predictors of its changes. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 5, 357–362.
Atroszko, P.A., Andreassen, C.S., Griffiths, M.D., Pallesen, S. (2016). The relationship between study addiction and work addiction: A cross-cultural longitudinal study. Journal of Behavioral Addiction, 5, 708–714.
Balakrishnan, J. & Griffiths, M.D. (2017). Social media addiction: What is the role of content in YouTube? Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 6, 364-377.
Black, D., Belsare, G., & Schlosser, S. (1999). Clinical features, psychiatric comorbidity, and health-related quality of life in persons reporting compulsive computer use behavior. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 60, 839-843.
Burn, C. (2016). Poesegraphilia – Addiction to the act of writing poetry. Poetry Changes Lives, May 27. Located at: http://www.poetrychangeslives.com/addiction-to-the-act-of-writing-poetry/
Cantelmi, T & Talls, M. (2009). Trapped in the web: The psychopathology of cyberspace. Journal of CyberTherapy and Rehabilitation, 2, 337-350.
Černý, L. & Černý, K. (1992). Can carrots be addictive? An extraordinary form of drug dependence. British Journal of Addiction, 87, 1195-1197.
Chan, S. H., & Yao, L. J. (2005). An empirical investigation of hacking behavior. The Review of Business Information Systems, 9(4), 42-58.
Daily Mail (2005). Aquaholics: Addicted to drinking water. May 16. Located at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-348917/Aquaholics-Addicted-drinking-water.html
de Leon, J., Verghese, C., Tracy, J. I., Josiassen, R. C., & Simpson, G. M. (1994). Polydipsia and water intoxication in psychiatric patients: A review of the epidemiological literature. Biological Psychiatry, 35(6), 408-419.
Dundas, B., Harris, M., & Narasimhan, M. (2007). Psychogenic polydipsia review: etiology, differential, and treatment. Current Psychiatry Reports, 9(3), 236-241.
Edelstein, E.L. (1973). A case of water dependence. British Journal of Addiction to Alcohol and Other Drugs, 68, 365–367.
Foster, A.C., Shorter, G.W. & Griffiths, M.D. (2015). Muscle Dysmorphia: Could it be classified as an Addiction to Body Image? Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 4, 1-5.
Gaita, P. (2017). Does compulsive YouTube viewing qualify as addiction? The Fix, May 19. Located at: https://www.thefix.com/does-compulsive-youtube-viewing-qualify-addiction
Grall-Bronnec, M. Bulteau, S., Victorri-Vigneau, C., Bouju, G. & Sauvaget, A. (2015). Fortune telling addiction: Unfortunately a serious topic about a case report. Journal of Behavioral Addiction, 4, 27-31.
Griffiths, M.D. (1992). Pinball wizard: A case study of a pinball addict. Psychological Reports, 71, 160-162.
Griffiths, M.D. (2000). Computer crime and hacking: A serious issue for the police. Police Journal, 73, 18-24.
Griffiths, M.D. (2017). Commentary: Development and validation of a self-reported Questionnaire for Measuring Internet Search Dependence. Frontiers in Public Health, 5, 95. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2017.00095
Griffiths, M.D., Foster, A.C. & Shorter, G.W. (2015). Muscle dysmorphia as an addiction: A response to Nieuwoudt (2015) and Grant (2015). Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 4, 11-13.
Hatfield, E., & Sprecher, S. (1998). The passionate love scale. In Fisher, T.D., Davis, C.M., Yarber, W.L. & Davis, S. (Eds.). Handbook of sexuality-related measures (pp. 449-451). London: Sage.
Heirene, R. M., Shearer, D., Roderique-Davies, G., & Mellalieu, S. D. (2016). Addiction in extreme sports: An exploration of withdrawal states in rock climbers. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 5(2), 332-341.
Hickey, E.W. (2010). Serial Murderers and Their Victims (Fifth Edition). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Hunter, M. S., Nitschke, C., & Hogan, L. 1981. A scale to measure love addiction. Psychological Reports, 48, 582-582.
Ishaq, G., Rafique, R., & Asif, M. (2017). Personality traits and news addiction: Mediating role of self-control. Journal of Dow University of Health Sciences, 11(2), 31-53.
Jaghab, K., Skodnek, K. B., & Padder, T. A. (2006). Munchausen’s syndrome and other factitious disorders in children: Case series and literature review. Psychiatry (Edgmont), 3(3), 46-55.
Kaplan, R. (1996), Carrot addiction. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 30, 698-700.
Kellett, S. & Gross, H. (2006). Addicted to joyriding? An exploration of young offenders’ accounts of their car crime. Psychology, Crime & Law, 12, 39-59.
Kennedy, J. G., Teague, J., & Fairbanks, L. (1980). Qat use in North Yemen and the problem of addiction: a study in medical anthropology. Culture, medicine and psychiatry, 4(4), 311-344.
Kwon, M., Kim, Y., Kim, H., & Kim, J. (2018). Does sport addiction enhance frontal executive function? The case of badminton. NeuroQuantology, 16(6), 13-21.
Lam, J. (2017). Fifty shades of sexual offending – Part 1. The Law Gazette, July. Located at: http://v1.lawgazette.com.sg/2017-07/1910.htm
Loscalzo, Y, & Giannini, M. (2017). Evaluating the overstudy climate at school and in the family: The Overstudy Climate Scale (OCS). ARC Journal of Psychiatry, 2(3), 5-10.
Loscalzo, Y., & Giannini, M. (2018). Study engagement in Italian university students: A Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale—Student Version. Social Indicators Research, Epub ahead of print. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-018-1943-y
Manghi, R. A., Broers, B., Khan, R., Benguettat, D., Khazaal, Y., & Zullino, D. F. (2009). Khat use: lifestyle or addiction? Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 41(1), 1-10.
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Masters, B. (1986). Killing for Company: The Story of a Man Addicted to Murder. New York: Stein and Day.
McClurg, L. (2017). After compulsively watching YouTube, teenage girl lands in rehab for ‘digital addiction’. PBS Newshour, May 16. Located at: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/compulsively-watching-youtube-teenage-girl-lands-rehab-digital-addiction/
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Spivack, A., & McKelvie, A. (2018). Entrepreneurship addiction: Shedding light on the manifestation of the ‘dark side’ in work behavior patterns. The Academy of Management Perspectives. https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2016.0185
Spivack, A. J., McKelvie, A., & Haynie, J. M. (2014). Habitual entrepreneurs: Possible cases of entrepreneurship addiction? Journal of Business Venturing, 29(5), 651-667.
Targhetta, R., Nalpas, B. & Perney, P. (2013). Argentine tango: Another behavioral addiction? Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 2, 179-186.
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Yung, K., Eickhoff, E., Davis, D. L., Klam, W. P., & Doan, A. P. (2014). Internet Addiction Disorder and problematic use of Google Glass™ in patient treated at a residential substance abuse treatment program. Addictive Behaviors, 41, 58-60.
Myth world: A brief look at some myths about Gaming Disorder
Earlier this year, the World Health Organisation announced that ‘Gaming Disorder’ (GD) was to be officially been included in the latest (eleventh) edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). The announcement received worldwide media coverage alongside many debates as to whether its inclusion was justified based on the scientific evidence. The extensive media coverage raised many questions but also appeared to give rise to a number of myths. In this blog, I address these myths in the British context but some of these myths also have resonance outside the UK.
Myth 1 – Gaming Disorder equates to gaming addiction. Almost all of the worldwide press coverage for GD in June 2018 was equated with gaming addiction. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) does not describe GD as an addiction and the WHO criteria for GD do not include criteria that I believe are core to being genuine addictions (such as tolerance and withdrawal symptoms). Confusingly, the criteria for Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) in the latest (fifth) edition of the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) does include all my core criteria of addiction. However, to be diagnosed with IGD, an individual does not necessarily have to endorse all the core addiction criteria. In short, all genuine gaming addicts are likely to be diagnosed as having GD and/or IGD but not all those with GD and/or IGD are necessarily gaming addicts.
Myth 2 – Gaming has many benefits so should not be classed as a disorder as it will create a ‘moral panic’: Predictably, the videogame industry has not welcomed the WHO’s decision to include GD in the ICD-11 and issued a statement to say gaming has many personal benefits and that GD will create moral panic and ‘abuse of diagnosis’. None of us in the field dispute the fact that gaming has many benefits but many other activities such as work, sex, and exercise can be disordered and addictive for a small minority, and is not a good basis for denying the existence of GD. The videogame industry also claims the empirical basis for GD is highly contested but then ironically uses non-empirical claims (i.e., that the introduction of GD will cause a moral panic and lead to diagnostic abuse by practitioners) as a core argument for why GD should not exist.
Myth 3 – Gaming Disorder is associated with other comorbidities so is not a separate disorder. In coverage concerning GD, those denying the existence of GD sometimes resort to the argument that problematic gaming is typically comorbid with other mental health conditions (e.g., depression, anxiety disorders, etc.) and therefore should not be classed as a separate disorder. However, such an argument is not applied (for instance) to those with alcohol use disorder or gambling disorder which are known to be associated with other comorbidities. In fact, we recently published some case studies in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction highlighting those attending treatment for GD included individuals both with and without underlying comorbidities. Consequently, diagnosis of disorders should be based on the external symptomatic behavior and consequences, not on the underlying causes and etiology.
Myth 4 – Gaming Disorder can now be treated for free by the National Health Service: Unlike many other countries, the UK has a National Health Service (NHS) whose treatment services can be accessed free of charge. A number of British newspapers reported that inclusion of GD in the ICD-11 meant that those with GD can now get free treatment. However, this claim is untenable and is unlikely to happen. All health trusts in the UK have a finite budget and allocate resources to those conditions considered a priority. Treating individuals with GD will rarely (if ever) be given priority over treatment for cancer, heart disease, schizophrenia, depression, etc. In countries where private health insurance is the norm, GD is likely to be a condition excluded for treatment on such policies even though it is now in the ICD-11.
Myth 5 – The inclusion of Gaming Disorder as a mental disorder will lead to ‘millions’ of children being stigmatized for their videogame playing: This myth has been propagated by a group of scholars (mainly researchers working in the media studies field) but is completely unsubstantiated. The number of children who would ever be officially be diagnosed as having GD is extremely low and – as noted above – millions of children play videogames for enjoyment without any problems or stigma.
(Please note: This article is based on an editorial that I first published earlier this year: Griffiths, M.D. (2018). Five myths about gaming disorder. Social Health and Behavior Journal, 1, 2-3)
Dr Mark Griffiths, Distinguished Professor of Behavioural Addiction, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Further reading
Aarseth, E., Bean, A. M., Boonen, H., Colder Carras, M., Coulson, M., Das, D., … & Haagsma, M. C. (2017). Scholars’ open debate paper on the World Health Organization ICD-11 Gaming Disorder proposal. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 6(3), 267-270.
Gentile, D.A., Bailey, K., Bavelier, D., Funk Brockmeyer, J., … & Young, K. (2017). The state of the science about Internet Gaming Disorder as defined by DSM-5: Implications and perspectives, Pediatrics, 140, S81-S85. doi: 10.1542/peds.2016-1758H
Griffiths, M.D. (2005). A ‘components’ model of addiction within a biopsychosocial framework. Journal of Substance Use, 10, 191-197.
Griffiths, M.D. (2017). Behavioural addiction and substance addiction should be defined by their similarities not their dissimilarities. Addiction, 112, 1718-1720.
Griffiths, M.D. (2018). Conceptual issues concerning internet addiction and internet gaming disorder. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 16, 233-239.
Griffiths, M.D., Kuss, D.J., Lopez-Fernandez, O., & Pontes, H.M. (2017). Problematic gaming exists and is an example of disordered gaming. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 6, 296-301.
European Games Developer Foundation. Statement on WHO ICD-11 list and the inclusion of gaming. 2018 June 15. Available from: http://www.egdf.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Industry-Statement-on-18-June-WHO-ICD-11.pdf
Király, O., Griffiths, M.D. & Demetrovics Z. (2015). Internet gaming disorder and the DSM-5: Conceptualization, debates, and controversies, Current Addiction Reports, 2, 254–262.
Király, O., Griffiths, M.D., King, D., Lee, H-K., Lee, S-Y., Bányai, F., Zsila, A. Demetrovics, Z. (2018). An overview of policy responses to problematic videogame use. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 7, 503-517.
Kuss, D.J., Griffiths, M.D. & Pontes, H.M. (2017). Chaos and confusion in DSM-5 diagnosis of Internet Gaming Disorder: Issues, concerns, and recommendations for clarity in the field. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 6, 103-109.
Kuss, D.J., Pontes, H.M. & Griffiths, M.D. (2018). Neurobiological correlates in Internet Gaming Disorder: A systematic review. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 9, 166. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00166
Griffiths, M.D., Van Rooij, A., Kardefelt-Winther, D., Starcevic, V., Király, O…Demetrovics, Z. (2016). Working towards an international consensus on criteria for assessing Internet Gaming Disorder: A critical commentary on Petry et al (2014). Addiction, 111, 167-175.
Rumpf, H. J., Achab, S., Billieux, J., Bowden-Jones, H., Carragher, N., Demetrovics, Z., … & Saunders, J. B. (2018). Including gaming disorder in the ICD-11: The need to do so from a clinical and public health perspective: Commentary on: A weak scientific basis for gaming disorder: Let us err on the side of caution (van Rooij et al., 2018). Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 7(3), 556-561.
Torres-Rodriguez, A., Griffiths, M.D., Carbonell, X. Farriols-Hernando, N. & Torres-Jimenez, E. (2018). Internet gaming disorder treatment: A case study evaluation of four adolescent problematic gamers. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-017-9845-9.
Painless steal? Another look at shoplifting as an addiction
In a previous 2014 blog, I looked at the psychology of shoplifting (which I called ‘Men of Steal’) based on the work of American psychologist John C. Brady (who’s upcoming book is also entitled ‘Men of Steal’). Brady is a really engaging writer and he recently published an article in Counsellor magazine on celebrity theft and why for some people it should be classed as an addiction.
Brady briefly recounted the cases of three celebrities who had been caught shoplifting (Lindsay Lohan, Kim Richards, and Winona Ryder – click on the links to get the stories of each of these celebrity shoplifting stories). Other famous celebrity shoplifters include Britney Spears, Megan Fox, Kristin Cavallari, Farrah Fawcett, and WWE Diva Emma (if you’re really interested in these and other celebrity shoplifters, then check out this story in Rebel Circus). According to Dr. Brady “psychological analysis reveals they are not greedy, rather they are addicted to the ‘rush’ associated with theft” and that there is an ‘addictive criminal syndrome’.
Brady’s article used the ‘celebrity’ angle as the ‘hook’ to write more generally about ‘shoplifting addictions’ and briefly outlined the cases of three high profile ‘theft addicts’:
“The first man is Bruce McNall, former LA Kings owner, Hollywood film producer, and a convicted felon. He received five years in Lompoc Federal Prison for stealing $238 million. The second man, John Spano, former owner of the New York Islanders, went off to two terms in federal prisons for stealing $80 million. He is currently an inmate in an Ohio prison doing ten more years for a crime he did not originate. Finally, William “Boots” Del Biaggio III, former Silicon Valley venture capitalist operator and founder of Heritage Bank in San Jose, graduated in 2016 from eight years at Lompoc for fraud. He stole $110 million to buy the Nashville Predators hockey team. He later expressed regret—maybe too little too late”.
Brady believes that these individuals had a behavioural addiction to stealing. The cases he outlined were all true and were examples of what Brady described as “elite offenders who became addicted to the rush connected to stealing”. Some commonalities between the three individuals was noted: they were charming, deceptive, had personalities that were outgoing, never used violence or aggression in the carrying out of their thefts, and (in Brady’s view) were addicted to crime. Like many addicts, they harmed themselves, their families, and their communities as a consequence of their behaviour.
The idea of being addicted to crime is not new, and the addiction components model that I have developed over the last couple of decades was based on that of one of my mentors – Iain Brown – who used such a model to explain addictive criminal offending in a really good book chapter published back in 1997 (in the book Addicted to Crime? edited by the psychologists John Hodge, Mary McMurran and Clive Hollin – see ‘Further reading’ below). Like me, Brady also read Addicted to Crime? in which it was posited that some criminals appear to become addicted to stealing (and that the act of theft made them feel good psychologically by providing a ‘high’ or a ‘rush’ similar to the feelings individuals experience when they ingest psychoactive substances). Brady argues that an addiction to stealing is a behavioural addiction and that it is “functionally equivalent” to substance-based addictions for two main reasons: that theft addicts (i) “generally derive the same initial uplifting, euphoric, and subjective sensations similar to substance abusers”, and (ii) “are almost blindly driven toward their goal and they cannot stop their self-defeating behaviors”.
Brady contends that there are five addictive criminal stages of what he terms “the zone”: (i) criminal triggers, (ii) moral neutralisation, (iii) commission of the criminal act, (iv) post-criminal-act exhilaration, and (v) post-criminal-act confusion. Brady asserts:
“The five addictive stages comprising the criminal addictive zone helps explain why certain offenders arrived at such low points in their lives and progressively became drawn deeper into the addictive zone. Because these three men became frozen into one or more of these stages, they simply could not easily find an exit sign. I have applied this criminal zonal theory to a variety of deviant groups, including white-collar deviants and now to these three elite, nonviolent bank robbers. An analysis of the criminal addictive personality forms the foundation of the addictive zone. This zone is marked with multiple, negative psychological forces evidenced during each of the five stages…The movement through these overlapping stages results in a negative, criminological, transformative process during which theft addicts surrender their prior noncriminal status (positive), thereby adopting a new deviant one (negative)…After entering into this enigmatic zone, offenders often become locked into one or more of these overlapping stages. The one factor that remains constant is that the progression through these five stages dramatically and unalterably changed these men’s lives, their victims’ lives, and the lives of people around them”.
Brady’s five addictive criminal stages are:
- Criminal triggers – In the first stage. these internal triggers revolve around salience and low self-esteem and comprise “confusing and mostly illogical thoughts” that criminals acquire. These negative thoughts are “reflective of peoples’ compromised self-concepts coupled with the desire to overcompensate for perceived personal shortcomings” and primarily originate from feelings of loneliness, emptiness, and inadequacy.
- Moral neutralisation – In the second stage, Brady claims that this stage is the most complex and essential of all the stages and is rooted in conflict. The destructive and self-defeating behaviour that criminals experience is not driven by material (economic) motives but is simply individuals “trying to enrich their empty shell identities” and fuelled by irrational thoughts of wanting to prove to significant others that they are really important. These motives may be completely unconscious
- Commission of the criminal act – In the third stage, the actual carrying out of the criminal acts demands that criminals “neutralize the unsavory aspects of their offenses…and lend meaning to inexplicable behaviors”. The more a criminal engages in the activity the more criminals become “skilled practitioners in the art of self-deception”. Here, the criminal behaviour is paired with “exciting sensations” associated with the risk of engaging in criminal activity (“an anticipated visceral feeling or mental excitement and stimulation, if not an elation, a thrill, a rush, and even a sense of euphoria”). In short, the euphoric sensations experienced reinforce the criminal behaviour.
- Post-criminal-act exhilaration – In the fourth stage, Brady claims there is typically a “flooding of mood-elevating feelings similar to an adrenaline rush, accompanied with thoughts that synthetically increase their sense of well-being” and what my mentor Iain Brown refers to as “hedonic mood management”. In short, the criminal act can help individuals feel like “bigshots” and criminals may justify doing something bad because it makes them feel so good. Brady also claims that many of these exhilarating feelings “manifest themselves on an unconscious level that is easily experienced, yet not easily comprehended by a theft addict”
- Post-criminal-act confusion – In the fifth stage, Brady claims that the mood modifying experiences in the third and fourth stages are “replaced with new, dramatic, and unexpected changes in the offenders’ emotional awareness”. Here, criminals become confused, depressed and socially withdrawn, as well as experiencing withdrawal-like reactions (e.g., sweating, headaches, anxiety, nausea, heart arrhythmia, etc.). Brady says that on a psychological level, the fifth stage five is characterized by “confusion, guilt, afterthoughts, misgivings, anxiety, depression, and dramatic mood shifts ranging from feelings of sadness to hopelessness”. It is also during this stage that criminals might start to show signs of remorse.
Brady concludes that for the criminals he has known and treated “used the stolen money to boost their status and enhance their enormous egos so they could attain ‘big shot’ fame”. I find this last observation interesting given a previous blog that I wrote on fame being addictive. I’ve also written other blogs on addictive criminal behaviour (such as joy-riding).
I am of the opinion that specific types of crime can be classed as an addictive behaviour because addictions rely on constant rewards (i.e., reinforcement) and crime can provide many rewarding experiences (both financially and psychologically), at least in the short-term. I’m not for one-minute condoning such behaviour, just simply stating my opinion that I believe it’s theoretically possible to become addicted to activities such as stealing.
Dr. Mark Griffiths, Professor of Behavioural Addiction, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Further reading
Brady, J.C. (2013). Why Rich Women Shoplift – When They Have It All. San Jose, CA: Western Psych Press.
Brady, J.C. (2017) Celebrity theft: Unmasking addictive criminal intent. Counselor, July/August. Located at: http://www.counselormagazine.com/detailpageoverride.aspx?pageid=1729&id=15032386763
Brown, I. (1997). A theoretical model of the behavioral addictions: Applied to offending. In J.E. Hodge, M. McMurran, & C.R. Hollin (Eds.), Addicted to crime? (pp. 15–63). Chichester: Wiley.
Hodge, J.E., McMurran, M., & Hollin, C.R. (1997). Addicted to crime? Chichester: Wiley.
Shulman, T.D. (2011). Cluttered Lives, Empty Souls – Compulsive Stealing, Spending and Hoarding. West Conshohocken, PA: Infinity Publishing.
Soriano, M. (2015). 15 celebrities who were caught shoplifting. Rebel Circus, May 13. Located at: http://www.rebelcircus.com/blog/celebrities-caught-shoplifting/
We can work it out: A brief look at ‘entrepreneurship addiction’
Last month, a paper appeared online in the journal Academy of Management (AJM). I’d never heard of the journal before but its remit is “publish empirical research that tests, extends, or builds management theory and contributes to management practice”. The paper I came across was entitled ‘Entrepreneurship addiction: Shedding light on the manifestation of the ‘dark side’ in work behavior patterns’ – and is an addiction that I’d never heard of before. The authors of the paper – April Spivack and Alexander McKelvie – define ‘entrepreneurship addiction’ as “the excessive or compulsive engagement in entrepreneurial activities that results in a variety of social, emotional, and/or physiological problems and that despite the development of these problems, the entrepreneur is unable to resist the compulsion to engage in entrepreneurial activities”. Going by the title of the paper alone, I assumed ‘entrepreneurship addiction’ was another name for ‘work addiction’ or ‘workaholism’ but the authors state:
“We address what is unique about this type of behavioral addiction compared to related work pattern concepts of workaholism, entrepreneurial passion, and work engagement. We identify new and promising areas to expand understanding of what factors lead to entrepreneurship addiction, what entrepreneurship addiction leads to, how to effectively study entrepreneurship addiction, and other applications where entrepreneurship addiction might be relevant to study. These help to set a research agenda that more fully addresses a potential ‘dark side’ psychological factor among some entrepreneurs”.
The paper is a theoretical paper and doesn’t include any primary data collection. The authors had published a previous 2014 paper in the Journal of Business Venturing, on the same topic (‘Habitual entrepreneurs: Possible cases of entrepreneurship addiction?’) based on case study interviews with two habitual entrepreneurs. In that paper the authors argued that addiction symptoms can manifest in the entrepreneurial context. Much of the two papers uses the ‘workaholism’ literature to ground the term but the authors do view ‘entrepreneurship addiction’ and ‘work addiction’ as two separate entities (although my own view is that entrepreneurship addiction’ is a sub-type of ‘work addiction’ based on what I’ve read – in fact I would argue that all ‘entrepreneurship addicts’ are work addicts but not all work addicts are ‘entrepreneurship addicts’). Spivak and McKelvie are right to assert that “entrepreneurship addiction is a relatively new term and represents an emerging area of inquiry” and that “reliable prevalence rates are currently unknown”.
The aim of the AJM paper is to “situate entrepreneurship addiction as a distinct concept” and to examine entrepreneurship addiction in relation to other similar work patterns (i.e., workaholism, work engagement, and entrepreneurial passion). Like my own six component model of addiction, Spivak and McKelvie also have six components (and are similar to my own) which are presented below verbatim from their AJM paper:
- Obsessive thoughts – constantly thinking about the behavior and continually searching for novelties within the behavior;
- Withdrawal/engagement cycles – feeling anticipation and undertaking ritualized behavior, experiencing anxiety or tension when away, and giving into a compulsion to engage in the behavior whenever possible;
- Self-worth – viewing the behavior as the main source of self-worth;
- Tolerance – making increasing resource (e.g., time and money) investments;
- Neglect – disregarding or abandoning previously important friends and activities;
- Negative outcomes – experiencing negative emotional outcomes (e.g., guilt, lying, and withholding information about the behavior from others), increased or high levels of strain, and negative physiological/health outcomes.
As in my own writings on work addiction (see ‘Further reading’ below), Spivak and McKelvie also note that even when addicted, there may still be some positive outcomes and/or benefits from such behaviour (as can be found in other behavioural addictions such as exercise addiction). As noted in the AJM paper:
“Some of these positive outcomes may include benefits to the business venture including quick responsiveness to competitive pressures or customer demands and high levels of innovation, while benefits to the individual may include high levels of autonomy, financial security, and job satisfaction. It is the complexity of these relationships, or the combined positive and negative outcomes, that may obscure the dysfunctional dark side elements of entrepreneurship addiction”.
Spivak and McKelvie also go to great lengths to differentiate entrepreneurship addiction from workaholism (although I ought to point out, I have recently argued in a paper in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions [‘Ten myths about work addiction’] that ‘workaholism’ and ‘work addiction’ are not the same thing, and outlined in a previous blog). Spivak and McKelvie concede that entrepreneurship addiction is a “sister construct” to ‘workaholism’ because of the core elements they have in common. More specifically, in relation to similarities, they assert:
“Workaholism, like entrepreneurship addiction, emphasizes the compulsion to work, working long hours, obsessive thoughts that extend beyond the domain of work, and results in some of the negative outcomes that have been linked to entrepreneurship addiction, including difficulties in social relationships and diminished physical health (Spivack et al., 2014). Some of the conceptualizations of workaholism draw from the literature on psychological disorders. Similarly, we recognize and propose that there may be significant overlap with various psychological conditions among those that develop entrepreneurship addiction, including, but not limited to, obsessive compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, and ADD/ADHD”.
However, they then do on to describe what they feel are the practical and conceptual distinctions between entrepreneurship addiction and workaholism. More specifically, they argue that:
“(M)ost workaholics are embedded within existing firms and are delegated tasks and resources in line with the organization’s mission, often in a team-based structure. Most workaholics work on these assigned projects with intensity and some will do so with high levels of engagement, as specified in previous literature. But, in reward for their efforts, many employed workaholics may be limited to receiving recognition and performance bonuses. As a team member employed within the structures of an existing organization, the individual’s contribution to organizational outcomes may be obfuscated just as the reciprocal impact of organizational performance (whether negative or positive) on the individual may be buffered (i.e., there is little chance an employee will lose their home if the business doesn’t perform well). In contrast, entrepreneurs, by definition, are proactive creators of their work context. They are responsible for a myriad of decisions and actions both within and outside of the scope of their initial expertise, and are challenged to situate their work within a dynamic business environment. Entrepreneurs are more clearly linked with their work, as they are responsible for acquiring the resources and implementing them in unique business strategies to create a new entity”.
I would argue that many of the things listed here are not unique to entrepreneurs as I could argue that in my own job as a researcher that I also have many of the benefits outlined above (because within flexible parameters I have a job that I can do what I want, when I want, how I want, and with who I want – there are so many possible rewards in the job I do that it isn’t that far removed from entrepreneurial activity – in fact some of my job now actually includes entrepreneurial activity). As Spivak and McKelvie then go on to say:
“As a result of the intense qualities of the entrepreneurial experience, there are also more intense potential outcomes, whether rewards or punishments in financial, social, and psychological domains. For example, potential rewards for entrepreneurs extend far beyond supervisor recognition and pay bonuses, into the realm of public awareness of accomplishments (or failures), media heralding, and life-changing financial gains or losses. Entrepreneurship addiction thereby moves beyond workaholism into similarities with gambling because of the intensity of the experience and personal risk tied to outcomes”.
I’m not sure I would agree with the gambling analogy, but I agree with the broad thrust of what is being argued (but would still say that entrepreneurship addiction is a sub-type of work addiction). I ought to add that there has also been discussion about the risk of overabundance of unsubstantiated addictive disorders. For instance, in a 2015 paper in the Journal of Behavioral Addiction, Joel Billieux and his colleagues described a hypothetical case of someone they deem fitting into the criteria of the concept of “research addiction” (maybe they had someone like myself in mind?), invented for the purpose of the argument. However, it is worthwhile noting that if their hypothetical example of ‘research addiction’ already fits well into the persisting compulsive over-involvement in job/study to the exclusion of other spheres of life, and if it leads to serious harm (and conflict symptoms suggest that it may) then it could be argued that the person is addicted to work. What we could perhaps agree on, is that for the example of ‘research addiction’ we do not have to invent a new addiction, (just as we do not distinguish between vodka addicts, gin addicts or whisky addicts as there is the overarching construct of alcoholism). Maybe the same argument can be made for entrepreneurship addiction in relation to work addiction.
Dr. Mark Griffiths, Professor of Behavioural Addiction, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Further reading
Andreassen, C. S., Griffiths, M. D., Hetland, J., Kravina, L., Jensen, F., & Pallesen, S. (2014). The prevalence of workaholism: A survey study in a nationally representative sample of norwegian employees. PLoS ONE, 9, e102446. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0102446
Andreassen, C. S., Griffiths, M. D., Hetland, J., & Pallesen, S. (2012). Development of a work addiction scale. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 53, 265–272. doi:10.1111/sjop.2012.53.issue-3
Andreassen, C. S., Griffiths, M. D., Sinha, R., Hetland, J., & Pallesen, S. (2016) The Relationships between workaholism and symptoms of psychiatric disorders: A large-scale cross-sectional study. PLoS ONE, 11: e0152978. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0152978
Billieux, J., Schimmenti, A., Khazaal, Y., Maurage, P., & Heeren, A. (2015). Are we overpathologizing everyday life? A tenable blueprint for behavioral addiction research. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 4, 142–144.
Brown, R. I. F. (1993). Some contributions of the study of gambling to the study of other addictions. In W.R. Eadington & J. Cornelius (Eds.), Gambling Behavior and Problem Gambling (pp. 341-372). Reno, Nevada: University of Nevada Press.
Griffiths, M. D. (1996). Behavioural addictions: An issue for everybody? Journal of Workplace Learning, 8(3), 19-25.
Griffiths, M.D. (2005). Workaholism is still a useful construct. Addiction Research and Theory, 13, 97-100.
Griffiths, M.D. (2005b). A ‘components’ model of addiction within a biopsychosocial framework. Journal of Substance Use, 10, 191–197
Griffiths, M.D. (2011). Workaholism: A 21st century addiction. The Psychologist: Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 24, 740-744.
Griffiths, M.D., Demetrovics, Z. & Atroszko, P.A. (2018). Ten myths about work addiction. Journal of Behavioral Addictions. Epu ahead of print. doi: 10.1556/2006.7.2018.05
Griffiths, M.D. & Karanika-Murray, M. (2012). Contextualising over-engagement in work: Towards a more global understanding of workaholism as an addiction. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 1(3), 87-95.
Paksi, B., Rózsa, S., Kun, B., Arnold, P., Demetrovics, Z. (2009). Addictive behaviors in Hungary: The methodology and sample description of the National Survey on Addiction Problems in Hungary (NSAPH). [in Hungarian] Mentálhigiéné és Pszichoszomatika, 10(4), 273-300.
Quinones, C., & Griffiths, M. D. (2015). Addiction to work: A critical review of the workaholism construct and recommendations for assessment. Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, 10, 48–59.
Spivack, A., & McKelvie, A. (2017). Entrepreneurship addiction: Shedding light on the manifestation of the ‘dark side’ in work behavior patterns. The Academy of Management Perspectives. https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2016.0185
Spivack, A. J., McKelvie, A., & Haynie, J. M. (2014). Habitual entrepreneurs: Possible cases of entrepreneurship addiction? Journal of Business Venturing, 29(5), 651-667.
Sussman, S., Lisha, N. & Griffiths, M.D. (2011). Prevalence of the addictions: A problem of the majority or the minority? Evaluation and the Health Professions, 34, 3-56.