Parent-adolescent Conflict,parental Psychological Control And Internet Gaming Disorder Among Adolescents

As a hotspot issue all over the world,Internet gaming disorder has gained increasing attention.Internet gaming disorder refers to uncontrollable,excessive,and compulsive use of online games that causes social and/or emotional problems.Abundant research have pointed out that Internet gaming disorder is a risk factor for negative outcome among adolescents.In order to effectively prevent and intervene Internet gaming disorder,it is necessary to explore the relevant predictive factors and mechanisms.Grounded on social development theory and organism-environment interaction model,the current study,using longitudinal design,examined the underlying mechanisms of Internet gaming disorder by two sub-study.Based on the perspective of social development,study 1 investigated whether deviant peer affiliation mediated the relationship between parent-adolescent conflict,parental psychological control and Internet gaming disorder.Based on the organism-environment interaction model,study 2investigated whether the direct or indirect association between parent-adolescent conflict,parental psychological control and Internet gaming disorder was moderated by self-esteem.Study 1 and study 2 used the same sample.The current study conducted questionnaire survey on a one-year research,including three repeated measurement.A sample of 678 students from two public junior high schools in Dongguan and Foshan,Guangdong Province was randomly recruited.At the first measurement(Time 1,T1),the mean age of the participants was 12.72 years(SD = 0.55)and 49.9% of them were males.Results of study 1 showed that:(1)Parental psychological control at T1 predicted deviant peer affiliation at T2,which in turn,predicted Internet game disorder at T3;(2)Deviant peer affiliation at T2 did not play as a mediator in the relationship between parent-adolescent conflict at T1 and Internet gaming disorder at T3.Results of study 2indicated that:(1)There is a three-way interaction between parent-adolescent conflict,parental psychological control and self-esteem at T1 on the effect of deviant peer affiliation at T2;(2)Self-esteem moderated the relationship between deviant peer affiliation at T1 andInternet gaming disorder at T3;(3)Among adolescents with high parental psychological control and high self-esteem,parent-adolescent conflict at T1 predicted deviant peer affiliation at T2,which in turn,predicted Internet gaming disorder at T3.The current study investigated the predictive effect of parent-adolescent conflict and parental psychological control on Internet gaming disorder.In addition,deviant peer affiliation functioned as a mediator between parental psychological control and Internet gaming disorder.Furthermore,self-esteem explained individual discrepancy between parent-adolescent conflict,parental psychological control and Internet gaming disorder.In summary,these findings reveal the underlying mechanism of family,peer and individual characteristics on IGD,which deepen our knowledge of IGD,providing important implications for an integrative framework of theory and prevention.The results also underscore that educators should intervene IGD with multiple consideration,including family,peer and individual trait cultivation.