Study Addiction – A New Area of Psychological Study: Conceptualization, Assessment, and Preliminary Empirical Findings

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Abstract

Aims

Recent research has suggested that for some individuals, educational studying may become compulsive and excessive and lead to ‘study addiction’. The present study conceptualized and assessed study addiction within the framework of workaholism, defining it as compulsive over-involvement in studying that interferes with functioning in other domains and that is detrimental for individuals and/or their environment.

Methods

The Bergen Study Addiction Scale (BStAS) was tested – reflecting seven core addiction symptoms (salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, relapse, and problems) – related to studying. The scale was administered via a cross-sectional survey distributed to Norwegian ( n = 218) and Polish ( n = 993) students with additional questions concerning demographic variables, study-related variables, health, and personality.

Results

A one-factor solution had acceptable fit with the data in both samples and the scale demonstrated good reliability. Scores on BStAS converged with scores on learning engagement. Study addiction (BStAS) was significantly related to specific aspects of studying (longer learning time, lower academic performance), personality traits (higher neuroticism and conscientiousness, lower extroversion), and negative health-related factors (impaired general health, decreased quality of life and sleep quality, higher perceived stress).

Conclusions

It is concluded that BStAS has good psychometric properties, making it a promising tool in the assessment of study addiction. Study addiction is related in predictable ways to personality and health variables, as predicted from contemporary workaholism theory and research.

Related collections

Most cited references 33

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Addiction Is a Brain Disease, and It Matters

Alan Leshner (1997)

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Workaholism: definition, measurement, and preliminary results.

J. Spence, A Robbins (1992)

Questionnaires were developed to assess the concept of workaholism, defined in terms of high scores on measures of work involvement and driveness and low scores on a measure of enjoyment of work, and to contrast this profile with work enthusiasm, defined as high work involvement and enjoyment and low driveness. Additional scales were devised to test several predictions about the correlates of workaholism. A test battery including these scales was given in a mail survey to a national sample of male (n = 134) and female (n = 157) social workers with academic positions. The psychometric properties of the scales are described. Cluster analyses for each sex revealed groups who corresponded to the workaholic and work enthusiast profiles as well as several other profiles. As predicted, workaholics were higher than work enthusiasts (among other groups) on measures of perfectionism, nondelegation of responsibility, and job stress. They were also higher on a measure of health complaints. Investigations are being initiated to determine the association of workaholism and other score profiles with objectively diagnosed cardiac disorders and with measures of occupational performance.

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Development of a work addiction scale.

Cecilie Andreassen, Ståle Pallesen, Jørn Hetland … (2012)

Research into excessive work has gained increasing attention over the last 20 years. Terms such as "workaholism,"work addiction" and "excessive work" have been used interchangeably. Given the increase in empirical research, this study presents the development of the Bergen Work Addiction Scale (BWAS), a new psychometrically validated scale for the assessment of work addiction. A pool of 14 items, with two reflecting each of seven core elements of addiction (i.e., salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, relapse, and problems) was initially constructed. The items were then administered to two samples, one recruited by a web survey following a television broadcast about workaholism (n = 11,769) and one comprising participants in the second wave of a longitudinal internet-based survey about working life (n = 368). The items with the highest corrected item-total correlation from within each of the seven addiction elements were retained in the final scale. The assumed one-factor solution of the refined seven-item scale was acceptable (root mean square error of approximation = 0.077, Comparative Fit Index = 0.96, Tucker-Lewis Index = 0.95) and the internal reliability of the two samples were 0.84 and 0.80, respectively. The scores of the BWAS converged with scores on other workaholism scales, except for a Work Enjoyment subscale. A suggested cut-off for categorization of workaholics showed good discriminative ability in terms of working hours, leadership position, and subjective health complaints. It is concluded that the BWAS has good psychometric properties. © 2012 The Authors. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology © 2012 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): J Behav Addict

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): J Behav Addict

Journal ID (pmc): jba

Journal ID (publisher-id): JBA

Title: Journal of Behavioral Addictions

Publisher: Akadémiai Kiadó

ISSN (Print): 2062-5871

ISSN (Electronic): 2063-5303

Publication date (Print, pub): June 2015

Publication date (Electronic, pub): 27 May 2015

Volume: 4

Issue: 2

Pages: 75-84

Affiliations

[1 ]University of Gdańsk , Gdańsk, Poland

[2 ]University of Bergen, Department of Psychosocial Science , Bergen, Norway

[3 ]The Bergen Clinics Foundation , Bergen, Norway

[4 ]Nottingham Trent University , Nottingham, UK

Author notes

* Corresponding author: Paweł Andrzej Atroszko; Institute of Psychology, University of Gdańsk, Bażyńskiego 4, 80-952 Gdańsk, Poland; Phone: +48 58 523 43 22; E-mail: p.atroszko@ 123456ug.edu.pl

Article

DOI: 10.1556/2006.4.2015.007

PMC ID: 4500887

PubMed ID: 26014668

SO-VID: 4afe0afe-f7a3-4270-9901-de4285cc0cae

License:

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium for non-commercial purposes, provided the original author and source are credited.

History

Date received : 8 December 2014

Date revision received : 29 January 2015

Date accepted : 23 February 2015

Page count

Figures: 1, Tables: 6, References: 42, Pages: 10

Funding

This research was partially funded by “Yggdrasil – young guest and doctoral researchers’ annual scholarships for investigation and learning” (219026/F11) from Research Council of Norway to Dr. Pallesen and Mr. Atroszko. On the basis of decision number DEC-2013/08/T/HS6/00403 the author (Paweł Andrzej Atroszko) received funds from National Science Centre Poland within doctoral scholarship for preparing PhD dissertation.

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