Addiction is one of the most rapidly expanding psychopathological phenomena. Thishas brought abut also an increasing differentiation between kinds ofaddictions. The question of this studyis whether there are indeed different kinds of addiction. A previous study showedthat a cognitive orientation questionnaire of addiction (see Methods) identifiedbasic similarities and specific differences between addiction to alcohol and todrugs.

Thisstudy was designed to explore the differences between two types of addictionthat have been defined: substance addictions, e.g., to alcoholism, tobacco or drugs, and process addictions, e.g., shopping, internet usager, games), or gambling.

Theaim was to apply the Cognitive Orientation Questionnaire of Addiction that hasbeen applied in a previous study to the issue of exploring the differencesbetween substance and process addictions. It was hypothesized that they woulddiffer not in the basic structure of the underlying motivation but in certainspecific themes constituting the motivation.

Threegroups of subjects (22-45 yrs) participated: 25 with substance addictions, 25with process addictions and 25 controls. They were administered the CognitiveOrientation Questionnaire of Addiction that is based on assessing motivation interms of four types of beliefs referring to specific themes.

Aregression analysis showed that the our types of beliefs differentiated significantlybetween the addicted subjects andcontrols. Specific themes differentiated between the two groups of addicted subjects.

There seems to a general psychological tendency for addiction, with particularfeatures characteristic of specific types of addiction.