Abstract
Background and Aims
Emerging research has identified parents' psychological distress as a potential risk factor that increases adolescents' vulnerability to problematic gaming. This study attempted to address “why” from a relational perspective. We hypothesized that parents' psychological distress may link to adolescents' problematic gaming through the mediation of parent-child relationship quality, while the mediating effects of parent-child relationship quality may vary depending on adolescents' emotion regulation.
Methods
We collected data from 4,835 parent-child dyads in China (parental age = 41.45 ± 4.53 years; adolescent age = 13.50 ± 1.00 years). Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was utilized to analyze the relationships among the variables under study.
Results
Parent-reported parental depression/anxiety was related to worse adolescent-reported parent-child relationship, which in turn related to more severe adolescent-reported problematic gaming. Moreover, the mediating effects of parent-child relationship quality were weaker when adolescents used more expressive suppression (but not cognitive reappraisal).
Discussion and Conclusions
The findings of this study highlight the need to consider both parent-child relationships and adolescents' active role in their own emotion regulation in order to understand parental influence on adolescent problematic gaming.
Emerging research has identified parents' psychological distress as a potential risk factor that increases adolescents' vulnerability to problematic gaming. This study attempted to address “why” from a relational perspective. We hypothesized that parents' psychological distress may link to adolescents' problematic gaming through the mediation of parent-child relationship quality, while the mediating effects of parent-child relationship quality may vary depending on adolescents' emotion regulation.
Methods
We collected data from 4,835 parent-child dyads in China (parental age = 41.45 ± 4.53 years; adolescent age = 13.50 ± 1.00 years). Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was utilized to analyze the relationships among the variables under study.
Results
Parent-reported parental depression/anxiety was related to worse adolescent-reported parent-child relationship, which in turn related to more severe adolescent-reported problematic gaming. Moreover, the mediating effects of parent-child relationship quality were weaker when adolescents used more expressive suppression (but not cognitive reappraisal).
Discussion and Conclusions
The findings of this study highlight the need to consider both parent-child relationships and adolescents' active role in their own emotion regulation in order to understand parental influence on adolescent problematic gaming.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 953-963 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Journal of Behavioral Addictions |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 30 Oct 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 22 Dec 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2023 Akademiai Kiado Rt.. All rights reserved.
Funding
This research was funded by the Shenzhen Key Laboratory of next generation interactive media innovative technology (Grant No. ZDSYS20210623092001004), the Shenzhen Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences (Grant No. 202003), Shenzhen Education Science 2021 Annual Project (Grant No. bskt21001), Lingnan University Research Seed Fund (Grant No. 102249), and Guangdong Philosophy and social Sciences Planning Project (Grant No. GD23SQXY01).
Keywords
- problematic gaming
- parental depression
- parental anxiety
- emotion regulation
- Chinese adolescents
- Parental depression
- Parental anxiety
- Problematic gaming
- Emotion regulation
