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Childhood Maltreatment Affects Mobile Phone Addiction from the Perspective of Attachment Theory

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Abstract

The current research explored the relationship between childhood maltreatment and mobile phone addiction and the specific internal mechanism from the perspective of attachment theory for the first time. A total of 1951 participants were recruited from one primary school, two middle schools, and one high school. The data was collected by self-reported questionnaires, using Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Core Self-Evaluations Scale, Self-control Scale, and mobile phone addiction questionnaire. The structural equation model was employed to analyze the data. The results demonstrated that core self-evaluation had a mediating effect between childhood maltreatment and mobile phone addiction, while the mediating effect of self-control was not significant. In addition, core self-evaluation and self-control had a significant chain-mediating effect between childhood maltreatment and mobile phone addiction. The present study revealed the potential mechanism of how childhood maltreatment influenced mobile phone addiction, providing a theoretical basis for controlling the negative consequences by improving core self-evaluation and self-control.

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Funding

This work was supported by the General Program of National Social Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 19BSH114].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China

    Yanhui Xiang, Qionghua He & Rong Yuan

  2. Cognition and Human Behavior Key Laboratory of Hunan Province, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, 410081, China

    Yanhui Xiang

  3. Center for Mind & Brain Science, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China

    Yanhui Xiang

  4. School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China

    Qionghua He

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  1. Yanhui Xiang
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  2. Qionghua He
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  3. Rong Yuan
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Contributions

Yanhui Xiang: conceptualization; data collection; funding acquisition; methodology; resources; supervision; writing review & editing. Qionghua He: formal analysis; visualization; writing original draft; writing—review & editing. Rong Yuan: writing review.

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Correspondence to Yanhui Xiang.

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Ethics approval for this study was obtained from the Academic Committee of the School of Psychology of Hunan Normal University. All procedures carried out in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration.

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All participants provided written informed consents and were paid after completing the whole questionnaires.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Yanhui Xiang and Qionghua He are the co-first authors.

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Xiang, Y., He, Q. & Yuan, R. Childhood Maltreatment Affects Mobile Phone Addiction from the Perspective of Attachment Theory. Int J Ment Health Addiction 21, 3536–3548 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-022-00806-0

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