The Influence of Psychological Acceptance and Internalizing in University Students upon Smartphone Addiction: The moderated mediating effect of Adverse Childhood Experiences

The purpose of this study was to verify the moderated mediating effect of adverse childhood experiences in the influence of university students’ psychological acceptance upon the smartphone addiction tendency mediated by the internalizing problems. To conduct this study, a questionnaire survey was carried out targeting students who are attending universities located in Daegu and Gyeongbuk after obtaining the approval from IRB. The survey period ran from October 5, 2019 to December 10, 2019. As a result, of distributing 570 self-report questionnaires, a total of 546 subjects were analyzed, excluding 11 university students who disagree and 13 university students who did not respond to questions. The research analysis was carried out by using SPSS 18.0 and PROCESS macro. The results of this study are as follows. The moderated mediating effect of adverse childhood experiences was significant in the influence of university students’ psychological acceptance upon smartphone addiction tendency mediated by the internalizing problems. It was indicated that the higher adverse childhood experience level leads to the less conditional indirect effect. These findings are suggesting the necessity of the preventive approach for reducing smartphone addiction tendency in undergraduates, of the development in a counseling program, and of the continuous research related to this.