Autonomy Need Dissatisfaction in Daily Life and Problematic Mobile Phone Use: The Mediating Roles of Boredom Proneness and Mobile Phone Gaming

Wei Hong, Ru- De Liu, Yi Ding, Rui Zhen, Ronghuan Jiang and Xinchen Fu
Additional contact information
Wei Hong: Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Ru- De Liu: Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Yi Ding: Graduate School of Education, Fordham University, New York, NY 10023, USA
Rui Zhen: Institute of Psychological Sciences, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou 311121, China
Ronghuan Jiang: Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Xinchen Fu: Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 15, 1-13

Abstract: Psychological needs dissatisfaction has been identified as hindering adaptive development, in which autonomy need dissatisfaction, as one core component, may be associated with adolescents’ maladaptive online behaviors. Sporadic research has examined the association between autonomy need dissatisfaction and problematic mobile phone use (PMPU). Boredom proneness and mobile phone gaming were suggested to be linked to this association. This study aimed to examine the mediating effects of boredom proneness and mobile phone gaming in the association between autonomy need dissatisfaction and PMPU. A total of 358 secondary school students completed questionnaires at three waves; autonomy need dissatisfaction was measured in time 1 (T1); boredom proneness and mobile phone gaming were measured one year later (time 2, T2); PMPU was measured two years later (time 3, T3). The structural equation model results showed that T1 autonomy need dissatisfaction not only directly predicted T3 PMPU, but also exerted effects via the mediating role of T2 boredom proneness and the chain mediating role of T2 boredom proneness and T2 mobile phone gaming. These findings reveal the unique role of specific psychological need in engaging PMPU, which provides support to targeted interventions, such that promoting autonomy need satisfaction may be an instrumental procedure to prevent adolescents from addiction-like online behaviors.

Keywords: autonomy need dissatisfaction; problematic mobile phone use; boredom proneness; mobile phone gaming; multiple mediation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/15/5305/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/15/5305/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:15:p:5305-:d:388652

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().