The relationship between smartphone addiction, attachment and emotion regulation: The mediator role of the temperament and character traits

This study aimed to evaluate the relationships between smartphone usage, attachment, emotion regulation difficulties, and temperament-character traits. It was also aimed to test a developmental etiological model of smartphone addiction examining the mediating effect of temperament and character dimensions in the relationship between attachment style and emotion regulation difficulties and smartphone addiction in early childhood. The sample of the study consisted of 400 university students from Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University and İzmir Kâtip Çelebi University. Smartphone Addiction Scale, Experiences in Close Relationships-II, Temperament and Character Inventory, and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale-Short Form were used as data collection tools. In the results, it was found that anxious attachment; strategy and impulsivity subtests of Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale; self-directedness and self-transcendence subscales of character dimensions significantly predicted the level of smartphone addiction. Finally, the path analysis had a very good fit to the data and suggested that self-directedness acted as a mediating role in the relationship between anxious attachment, strategy, impulsivity, and smartphone addiction. This model has revealed that those who are anxiously attachment, whose emotion regulation strategies are insufficient, and those who are impulsive while regulating their emotions have difficulties in self-directedness and that this plays an important role in increasing the likelihood of smartphone addiction. Therefore, it can be said that these findings will be useful in both theoretical and clinical applications.