A socio-cognitive model of video game usage.

[H.sub.6]: Self-reactive outcome expectations will be positively related to deficient self-regulation of video game consumption.

Social Cognitive Perspective of Flow Experience

Flow is a concept that has been proposed to explain enjoyable experiences that can be produced from one's immersive engagement in everyday activities. Defined as "the holistic sensation that people feel when they act with total involvement" (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975, p. 36), flow is described as a psychological state in which an individual experiences a feeling of transcendence, or oneness, with one's activity so that nothing else seems to matter (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). When people are in the flow state, they are so intensely focused on their present activity that they lose reflective self-consciousness, feel in control of their environment, sense merging of their actions and awareness, experience temporal distortion, and are intrinsically rewarded by the activity they are engaged in (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975). In this process, they continue to seek more complex challenges and perfect their skills during their course of action and, thus, their awareness and motivation of the performance become their activity, which eventually becomes an end in and of itself (Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). Flow has been applied to understanding media consumption behavior in a variety of interactive media environments (Ghani & Deshpande, 1994; Hoffman & Novak, 1996; Koufaris, 2002; Novak & Hoffman, 1997; Trevino & Webster, 1992; Webster, Trevino, & Ryan, 1993).

It has been suggested that flow experience instigates media users to participate in media consumption repeatedly and excessively. Hoffman and Novak (1996, p. 57) argued "flow is 'the glue' holding people" in highly interactive mediated communication. In a subsequent study, Novak and Hoffman (1997) applied the concept of flow to Internet usage and found that users' flow experience was significantly related to the frequency and duration of Web site visits, promoting "stickiness" to their media consumption behavior. Flow experience, often characterized as concentration and intrinsic enjoyment, has been found to predict media usage (Ghani & Deshpande, 1994). Focused concentration positively influenced the overall experience of computer users (Novak & Hoffman, 1997) and their intentions to use a system repeatedly (Webster et al., 1993).

The relationship between flow experience and media usage can be explained in social cognitive terms as well. Flow experiences provide enjoyable activity incentives (cf. Bandura, 1986) that motivate media consumption, video game usage in the present instance. For example, either by directly experiencing pleasurable flow states while playing video games themselves (enactive learning in social cognitive terms) or by observing the flow states of others (vicarious learning) video game players expect that the same enjoyable, immersive feelings of "oneness" will be visited upon them the next time they play a game. Further, video game players seek to fulfill their self-reactive outcome incentives to regulate their psychological states through their flow experiences. This assumption is consistent with Sherry's (2004) idea that flow experience offers an opportunity to seek out emotional pleasure, such as an escape to a fantasy, by both arousing and relaxing media users.

Once the relationship between media usage and enjoyable activity/self-reactive outcome incentives is well established through repeated flow experiences over time, media consumers may gradually cease to actively consider media consumption decisions. As a result, the enjoyable activity incentive should directly cause repeated media consumption that will lead to habit formation. Thus, flow experience should be directly related to habit strength.

Individuals also lose reflective self-consciousness by applying intense self-reactive incentives to their media behaviors through video game-induced flow experiences. As individuals experience the flow states, their self-regulation becomes deficient and the self-regulatory functions of judgmental process and self-reactive influence cease to moderate their gaming behavior. They thus become engaged/immersed in media consumption much longer than originally planned because two important mechanisms of self-regulation are temporarily disengaged. The third subfunction of self-regulation, self-observation of behavior, would seem to be also fully immobilized perhaps accounting for the intensity of concentration and "oneness" of the flow experience that temporarily blocks judgmental process and self-reactive influence as well as awareness of the passage of time. Consequently, garners may therefore fall into a pattern of mounting game consumption and resort to the enjoyment of the flow experience to dissipate the negative mood that follows from the harmful life consequences (e.g., flunking out of college) that are linked to excessive usage. Thus, the following hypotheses are formally stated:

[H.sub.7]: Flow experience will be positively related to video game habit strength.

[H.sub.8]: Flow experience will be positively related to deficient self-regulation of video game consumption.

[H.sub.9]: Flow experience will be positively related to self-reactive outcome expectations.

[H.sub.10]: Flow experience will be positively related to video game usage.

The flow state is attained only when the level of congruence between skill and challenge is above a certain threshold. As Ellis, Voelkl, and Morris (1994, p. 338) put it, "flow results from experience contexts characterized by a match between challenge and skills only when both challenges and skills exceed the level that is typical for the day to day experiences of the individual." Unless the match reaches the "above-threshold" point, a person is not motivated to become involved in the given activity, even if the person's perceived skill and challenge are matched. If the match lies below a person's typical level, then the person is likely to be in a state of apathy (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). Consequently, the best moment for the flow experience is realized when one is intrinsically motivated to strive to achieve something active, difficult, and worthwhile, not something passive, receptive, or relaxing (Csikszentimihaly, 1990). Thus, only the optimal balance activates intrinsic interests that require further concentration and involvement to gratify individuals' internal goals for their activity. Because video games are a highly active medium, requiring intense concentration and physical activity (Dominick, 1984), as well as concrete goals, clear feedback, and rich visual and aural information (Sherry, 2004), video game play will continue only if the game players' effortful involvement optimally matches the demanding levels of the contents of the game. In this sense, the flow state should be understood as a consequence of an optimal balance rather than a simple match between skill and challenge in a given situation.

The balance of skill and challenge is encapsulated succinctly in the social cognitive construct of self-efficacy, defined as "beliefs in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments" (Bandura, 1997, p. 3). Thus, perceived skill may be equated with self-efficacy (see Koufaris, 2002). Based on this reasoning, the following hypothesis is stated:

[H.sub.11]: Those with high self-efficacy and high challenge will be more likely to experience flow experience than all others with high self-efficacy and low challenge, with low self-efficacy and high challenge, and with low self-efficacy and low challenge.

In an attempt to test the direct and indirect relationships as hypothesized above, this study proposed a structural model (See Figure 1) that integrates the underlying mechanisms of Bandura's (1991) social cognitive theory of self-regulation and Csikszentmihalyi's (1975)theory of flow experience. In the proposed model, video game use was directly and indirectly affected by self-reactive outcome expectations, habit strength, deficient self-regulation, flow experience, and optimal balance between perceived self-efficacy and perceived challenge.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Research Method

Respondents and Procedures

College students are an important population in studying video game consumption behavior because they are not only the first generation of home-console video game players (e.g., Nintendo/Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Sony PlayStation, etc.) (Lucas & Sherry, 2004), but also still enthusiastic gamers today. According to a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey (2) (Jones et al., 2003), video games have become a part of college life: nearly every college students had played a video game (e.g., console, computer, online games, etc.) at some point in their lives and about two out of three still play as a regular or occasional game player in many accommodating settings of campus, such as computer labs and dormitories. The same survey also reported that close to half of the population agreed that gaming keeps them from studying "some" or "a lot." Known to be more susceptible to depression than other populations (Rich & Scovel, 1987), college students themselves tend to have some characteristics that can provoke particular risk to obtain excessive video game habits, which may often stem from their tendency for unregulated "online" usage as well as compulsive buying behavior (LaRose & Eastin, 2002). As such, college students' video gaming is likely to tell much about underlying socio-cognitive mechanisms of video game consumption behavior.