Maladaptive Perfectionism and Internet Addiction among Chinese College Students: A Moderated Mediation Model of Depression and Gender

Wenjie Yang, Nobuaki Morita, Zhijuan Zuo, Kyoko Kawaida, Yasukazu Ogai, Tamaki Saito and Wenyan Hu
Additional contact information
Wenjie Yang: The Mental Health Center, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, China
Nobuaki Morita: Department of Social Psychiatry and Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba 3050006, Japan
Zhijuan Zuo: The Mental Health Center, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, China
Kyoko Kawaida: Department of Social Psychiatry and Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba 3050006, Japan
Yasukazu Ogai: Department of Social Psychiatry and Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba 3050006, Japan
Tamaki Saito: Department of Social Psychiatry and Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba 3050006, Japan
Wenyan Hu: Mental Health Education Center for College Students, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310018, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 5, 1-13

Abstract: The association between perfectionism and addictive behaviors has been examined in previous literature; however, few pieces of research have investigated the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying this relationship. Using a sample of 2016 Chinese college students, the present study examined the mediator of depression between maladaptive perfectionism and Internet addiction and the moderator of gender in such associations. The findings indicated that maladaptive perfectionism was directly related to students’ Internet addiction and indirectly predicted students’ Internet addiction via the mediator of depression. Gender moderated the direct effect, rather than the indirect effect, of maladaptive perfectionism on Internet addiction. Even though males reported a lower score on Internet addiction compared to females, the effect of maladaptive perfectionism on Internet addiction was stronger for males than for females. These findings revealed the psychological mechanisms from perfectionism to Internet addiction, which contributed to the theoretical development in addiction research and provided implications for interventions to reduce Internet addiction among Chinese college students.

Keywords: maladaptive perfectionism; internet addiction; depression; gender; college student (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/5/2748/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/5/2748/ (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:18:y:2021:i:5:p:2748-:d:513205

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 ().