Psychological abuse and neglect in relation to mobile phone addiction in junior high school students： path analysis of self-esteem and interpersonal alienation

Abstract

BackgroundMobile phone addiction has attracted widespread attention in society， and psychological abuse and neglect is an important factor in predicting mobile phone addiction， whereas limited research has been done to evaluate its impact on mobile phone addiction.ObjectiveTo explore the correlation of psychological abuse and neglect with mobile phone addiction， and to test the pathway of self-esteem and interpersonal alienation， so as to provide references for preventing and curbing mobile phone addiction in junior high school students.MethodsIn May 2022， a cluster sampling was utilized to select 800 students in two middle schools in a county of Hainan Province， and all students were assessed using Child Psychological Abuse and Neglect Scale （CPANS）， Mobile Phone Addiction Index （MPAI）， Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale （SES） and Interpersonal Alienation Scale of Adolescent StudentsAlienation Scale. Pearson correlation analysis was adopted to determine the correlation among the above-mentioned scales， and Process Macro 3.5 for SPSS was used to test the mediation effect.ResultsCPANS score was negatively correlated with SES score （r=-0.278， P<0.01）， and positively correlated with Interpersonal Alienation Scale score and MPAI score （r=0.471， 0.372， P<0.01）. SES score was negatively correlated with Interpersonal Alienation Scale score and MPAI score （r=-0.438， -0.196， P<0.01）. Interpersonal Alienation Scale score was positively correlated with MPAI score （r=0.392， P<0.01）. Interpersonal alienation （indirect effect value was 0.104） played a mediation role in the relationship between psychological abuse and neglect and mobile phone addiction. Self-esteem and interpersonal alienation exhibited a chained mediation effect on the relationship between psychological abuse and neglect and mobile phone addiction （indirect effect value was 0.026）， accounting for 6.99% of the total effect.ConclusionPsychological abuse and neglect can not only directly predict mobile phone addiction， but also can indirectly affect mobile phone addiction through separate mediation of interpersonal alienation or chained mediation of self-esteem and interpersonal alienation. ［Funded by High-level Talent Project of Hainan Natural Science Foundation （number， 721RC511）］

Keywords

• psychological abuse and neglect
• self-esteem
• interpersonal alienation
• mobile phone addiction
• chained mediation