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Internet Addiction, Temperament, and the Moderator Role of Family Emotional Involvement

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Abstract

This study examined the relationship between internet addiction, temperament, and family functioning focusing on the unique and common contribution that temperament and family functioning made to internet addiction. A total of 320 adolescents (164 boys and 156 girls), from 15 to 17 years (M = 16.06, SD = 0.59), completed measures of internet addiction, temperament, and family functioning. Data showed that salience, as the ability of internet to change negatively person’s life, was predicted positively by temperament linked to lack of control and by the perception of low level of familial emotional involvement. Results also revealed that family affective involvement played a moderating role in the relationship between temperamental lack of control and salience of internet, such that both at lower and higher levels of lack of control, internet salience tended to be lower when family affective involvement was high and to be higher when family affective involvement was low.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Università Kore di Enna (UKE), Cittadella Universitaria, 94100, Enna, Italy

    Ugo Pace

  2. Università Kore di Enna (UKE), Enna, Italy

    Giovanni Guzzo, Chiara Laudani & Marco Cacioppo

  3. University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy

    Carla Zappulla & Rosanna Di Maggio

Authors
  1. Ugo Pace
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  2. Carla Zappulla
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  3. Giovanni Guzzo
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  4. Rosanna Di Maggio
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  5. Chiara Laudani
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  6. Marco Cacioppo
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Correspondence to Ugo Pace.

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Pace, U., Zappulla, C., Guzzo, G. et al. Internet Addiction, Temperament, and the Moderator Role of Family Emotional Involvement. Int J Ment Health Addiction 12, 52–63 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-013-9468-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-013-9468-8

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