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How does parental psychological control strengthen the effects of risk factors for mobile phone addiction in vocational high school students? A moderated mediation model of loneliness and school connection

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Abstract

To explore the influence of parental psychological control on mobile phone addiction of vocational high school students and its mechanism. Starting from the perspectives of school, family and individual, further analyzing the mediating role of loneliness and the moderating role of school connection. The present study uses the parental psychological control scale, mobile phone addiction scale, loneliness scale and school connection questionnaire to investigate 1111 vocational high school students (Mage = 16.71 years, SD = 0.88) in a province in China. The results showed that: (1) Parental psychological control had a significant positive predictive effect on mobile phone addiction; (2) Loneliness plays a partial mediating role between parental psychological control and mobile phone addiction. (3) School connection plays a positive moderating role in the influence of loneliness on mobile phone addiction. The present study indicated that the relationship between parental psychological control and mobile phone addiction could be mediated by loneliness. More importantly, school connection plays a positive moderating role in the influence of loneliness on mobile phone addiction. Specifically, the positive predictive effect of loneliness on mobile phone addiction was greater for individuals with high levels of school connection than for individuals with low levels of school connection.

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Participants were assured that their questionnaire responses would remain anonymous and be used for academic research only. Due to the sensitivity of the issue, confidential data collected will not be shared.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to the participants who participated in this study. We are very grateful to the editor and reviewers for their work as well as their suggestions for this paper. We would like to thank our colleagues at ZJNU.

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian (NO.2022J01980) and China Scholarship Council Scholarship to Weilong Xiao (NO. 202208330336).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Management, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China

    Ling Liu & Danni Li

  2. School of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, 688 Yingbin Road, Jinhua, 321004, China

    Xiaolu Wu, Zhengzheng Yang, Weilong Xiao & Feng Zhu

  3. Research Unit Occupational & Organizational Psychology and Professional Learning, KU Leuven, 3000, Leuven, Belgium

    Weilong Xiao

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  1. Ling Liu
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Contributions

Xiaolu Wu, Ling Liu & Feng Zhu: Conceptualization, Writing-Original draft preparation. Weilong Xiao, Danni Li, Xiaolu Wu: Methodology, Data Collection. Weilong Xiao & Zhengzheng Yang: Resources, Data Collection. Feng Zhu, Ling Liu: Writing-Reviewing and Editing.

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Correspondence to Weilong Xiao or Feng Zhu.

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Ethics statement

This study was authorized by the Ethics Committee of School of Education, Zhejiang Normal University, China. This study was also approved by parents, school authorities, and principals. The participants were informed that their responses to questionnaires would be anonymous and confidential, and the data collected would be used for academic research only.

Conflict of interest

Author Ling Liu is a student for Tianjin University of Chinese Medicine in China. All other authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Author Feng Zhu is a student for Zhejiang Normal University in China. All other authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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Liu, L., Wu, X., Yang, Z. et al. How does parental psychological control strengthen the effects of risk factors for mobile phone addiction in vocational high school students? A moderated mediation model of loneliness and school connection. Curr Psychol 43, 18356–18367 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-05621-5

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