Document Type : Research Article
Authors
1 Assistant Professor, Department of Social Sciences, Psychology and Counseling, Khayyam University, Mashhad, Iran.
2 Master's student in General Psychology, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Humanities, Khayyam University, Mashhad, Iran
3 The mediating role of behavioral-emotional problems in the relationship between parental psychological control and university students' Internet addiction
4 M.A. in General Psychology, Khayyam University, Mashhad, Iran.
Abstract
Introduction
Internet addiction refers to a feeling of compulsion and inability to control using the Internet. Due to its prevalence among university students, and considering the fact that it may be influenced by variables such as parents and behavioral-emotional problems, the present study was conducted to investigate the mediating role of behavioral-emotional problems in the relationship between parental psychological control and Internet addiction.
Method
The research method was a descriptive correlational type, and its statistical population consisted of all university students studying at Khayyam University in the academic year 1401-1402, of whom, according to Guilford's opinion about the sufficiency of 200 people for the sample, a sample of 244 people (180 girls and 64 boys) were selected by the convenience sampling method. In order to collect the research data, the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) by Young (1999), the Dependency-oriented and Achievement-oriented Psychological Control Scale (DAPCS) by Soenens et al (2010), and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) by Goodman (2001) were used, and the data were analyzed utilizing SPSS and LISREL software. Statistical analysis was done based on descriptive statistics, the Pearson correlation test, and the path analysis method.
Results
The findings revealed that based on Pearson's correlation coefficients in line with examining the relationships between variables, parental psychological control has a positive and significant relationship with Internet addiction and behavioral-emotional problems, and also, behavioral-emotional problems have a positive and significant relationship with Internet addiction. Furthermore, in pursuance of answering the research question, the results of the modified model, considering parental psychological control as an exogenous variable and Internet addiction in university students as an endogenous variable, showed that among the types of behavioral-emotional problems that were placed as the mediating variables in the path analysis model, only emotional problems could play a significant mediating role for the relationship between parental psychological control and Internet addiction in university students.
Discussion
The present study's findings indicate a high correlation and by the same token, the importance of parental psychological control and behavioral-emotional problems in predicting Internet addiction in university students. Therefore, according to the obtained results, on one hand, parental psychological control directly causes Internet addiction in university students, and on the other hand, it can indirectly lead to the emergence or exacerbation of Internet addiction through the creation of emotional problems in university students. Based on this, on one side, Parents' use of appropriate and desirable communication methods, and on the other side, paying attention to the recognition and reduction of emotional problems to decrease Internet addiction in university students can be noteworthy.
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