The Relationship between College Students' Adult Attachment and Internet Addiction: the Mediating Role of Negative Emotions

To investigate the relationship between adult attachment and internet addiction across two dimensions (attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety), and explore the mediating role of negative emotions in the relationship between college students' internet addiction and adult attachment, 226 college students from a university were selected as subjects. The Chinese Internet Addiction Scale, Adult Attachment Scale, and Positive and Negative Affect Scale were used for a questionnaire survey. Data validity were assessed through Harman's single-factor test, and statistical analyses, including independent sample t-test, descriptive statistics, and Pearson correlation analysis, were conducted using SPSS 26.0 software. The results showed that, firstly, Internet addiction has no significant difference in gender. Secondly, negative emotions were positively correlation with adult attachment and internet addiction. Thirdly, negative emotions play a partial mediating role between attachment avoidance and internet addiction, and the mediating effects accounts for 81.59% of the total effect. Fourthly, negative emotions play a partial mediating role between attachment anxiety and internet addiction, and the mediating effect accounts for 31.52% of the total effect.